/ 



w 



/ 



SAVONAROLA, ERASMUS, 



AND OTHER ESSAYS 



By HENRY HART MILMAN, D.D. 



LATE DEAN OF S. PAUL'S. 



REPRINTED FROM 'THE QUARTERLY REVIEW: 



LONDON : 

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 



1870. 



The right of translation is reserved. 



PREFACE. 

At one period of his life Dean Milman was a constant 
contributor to the 4 Quarterly Keview,' and for many 
years, especially while it was edited by his dear and 
intimate friend John Gibson Lockhart, scarcely a volume 
appeared which did not contain, at the least, one article 
from his pen. Other avocations and severer studies 
afterwards diverted him from these more ephemeral 
literary pursuits, but again towards the close of his life, 
when the completion of the 'History of Latin Chris 
tianity ' had restored him to comparative leisure, he took 
pleasure in renewing his old connection with the Eeview, 
and in occasionally writing essays on any subject in 
which he was at the time particularly interested. A full 
list of these articles would run to great length. They 
embrace a wide variety of matter, critical, literary, bio- 
graphical, historical, and afford convincing proof of the 
versatility of his genius, of his large sympathy, and of 
the readiness with which his abundant stores of learning 
were brought to bear in elucidating and illustrating such 



vi PREFACE. 

topics. Some deal with questions and books of passing 
interest ; others have an undoubted permanent value. Of 
these the present publication contains a selection. With 
so much that claimed careful consideration it was by no 
means easy to contract the choice within the limit of a 
single volume, but it has been thought best in the first 
instance so to confine it, leaving for future consideration 
the advisability of a further reproduction. Many, and 
among them perhaps the most brilliant, of Dean Milman's 
essays relate to persons and events which have since been 
treated of in his 6 Histories,' and having there received 
his latest revision, find in them their proper and final 
place. But there are others, such as those on Savonarola 
and Erasmus, which take up an epoch of ecclesiastical 
history beyond the scope of the ' Histories of Christianity,' 
and cannot, it is believed, fail to be read with interest. 
The articles on 'The Development of Christian Doc- 
trine,' and 6 The Eelation of the Clergy to the People,' 
are the only two out of the whole number which are 
mainly or exclusively of a controversial character. But 
they nowhere for a moment transgress the bounds of 
strictest courtesy and candour, and many persons who 
remember their temperate but firm discussion of pro- 
blems, which cannot yet be regarded as of no practical 
importance, having expressed a desire that they should 
be reprinted, it was not possible to exclude them from 
the present series. A peculiar interest attaches to that 



PREFACE. Vll 

upon 'Pagan and Christian Sepulchres,' as being the 
author's last contribution to the Eeview. It was a 
subject to which his attention was for many reasons 
attracted, and during a visit to Korae in 1857 he had 
himself the satisfaction of visiting many of the principal 
catacombs under the guidance of the Cavaliere de Eossi, 
whose great work 'La Eoma Sotterranea Cristiana' 
eventually gave occasion to the Essay. 

A. M. 



CONTENTS. 



ESSAY I. 
SAVONAROLA. 

His Character and Mission discussed 

His Biographers 

Birth (a.d. 1452) and Boyhood 

Enters the Dominican Convent in Bologna 

His Poetry 

His Obedience to his Order .... 
Preaches his first recorded Sermon at Florence . 

His Sermon at Brescia 

An Apostle and Martyr of Truth 

Lorenzo the Magnificent 

The Pazzi Conspiracy 

State of the Papacy 

Dominican Convent of St. Mark 

Savonarola's Fame as a Preacher 

Appointed Prior of St. Mark .... 

His haughty Demeanour to Lorenzo. 

Preaches on the 1 Book of Genesis ' . 

Death of Lorenzo and Accession of Piero de' Medici 

Savonarola reforms his Convent 

Descent of Charles VIII. into Italy . 

Revolution in Florence 

Interview of Savonarola with the King of France 

Savonarola the Lawgiver of Florence 

His Office under the new Constitution 

He rules Florence from the Pulpit . 

Character of his Eloquence 

Religious Parties in Florence .... 

The ' Compendium Revel ationum ' . 



X 



CONTENTS. 



Denunciations against all Orders 
Change wrought by his Preaching . 
Organises a Sacred Militia of Youths 
Tyranny of the Boy Magistrates 
Pope Alexander VI. 
Savonarola inveighs against Kome . 
Papal Brief against him . 
Preaches his Lent ' Sermons on Amos ' 
Asserts a Mission above that of the Pope 
Procession on Palm Sunday 
Francesco Valori and the Piagnoni . 
Works of Art burnt in the Piazza . 
Piero de' Medici and the Arrabbiati . 

Savonarola excommunicated by the Pope 

The Plague at Florence . 

Conspiracy to overthrow the Republic 

His last Course of Sermons on ' Exodus ' 

Second Auto-da-fe of Art-treasures . 

Savonarola appeals from Pope to Christendom 

The ' Signory ' ordered to execute Papal Decree 

Rivalry of the Franciscans and Dominicans 

The Ordeal by Fire. . 

Altercations and Postponement of the Trial 

Fury of the Populace .... 

The Piagnoni attacked and Francesco Valori murdered 

Savonarola seized and tortured. 

Condemned to Death 

Examined before Commissioners of the Pope 
Confessions extracted by Torture . 
His last Night in Prison . ... 
His Execution (a.d. 1498) 
Reaction in his Favour and Demand for his Canonization 



ESSAY II. 
LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



Savonarola and Erasmus Harbingers of the Reformation 
Biographers of Erasmus . 
His Birth in Rotterdam (a.d. 1467) 
His Parents . . . . 
School at Deventer . 
Left an Orphan 



77 
78 
80 
81 
83 
84 



CONTENTS. 



His Property squandered by his Guardians 

Persuaded to enter the Cloister 

Books and Study his Consolation 

Secretary to the Bishop of Cambray . 

At the University of Paris .... 

Takes private Pupils 

His first Visit to England .... 

Learns Greek at Oxford 

His Verses on England 

Second Visit to England 

At Cambridge 

Kesidence in Italy 

Intimate with the Aldi at Venice 

His Eeception at Pome 

Return to England 

Visits the Shrine of Thomas a Becket 

Henry VHI. and Cardinal Wolsey . 

Professor of Divinity and of Greek at Cambridge 

His Intimacy with More and Colet . 

Leaves England and visits Charles of Austria . 

Long Residence at Basil 

His immense literary Reputation 
Courted by all the great Potentates . 
Erasmus, as Reviver of Classical Learning 

The ' Adagia ' 

As Opponent of Scholasticism .... 

The 1 Praise of Folly ' and ' Colloquies ' . 

As the Parent of Biblical Criticism . 

His Editions of the Early Fathers . 

Visions of a Peaceful Reformation . 

His Attitude towards Luther" . 

His Aversion to War and Strife 

His Ignorance of Modern Languages . 

Conflict with Ulric Hutten . 

The Peasant War . . • 

Luther denounces the Anabaptists . 

Position of Erasmus between the two Parties 

Luther's Letter to Erasmus . . 

The 1 Freedom of the Will ' 

Controversy between Erasmus and Luther 

Capture of Rome by the Constable Bourbon 

Martyrdom of Louis Berquin . 

Reformation in England .... 



xi 



85 
87 
88 
89 
90 
91 
92 
94 
95 
. 96 
. 97 
. 98 
. 99 
. 100 
. 101 
. 102 
. 103 
. 104 
. 105 
. 106 
. 107 
. 109 
. 110 
. 113 
. 115 
. 116 
. 118 
. 120 
. 122 
. 124 
. 125 
. 127 
. 128 
. 131 
. 134 
. 135 
. 136 
. 137 
. 139 
. 142 
. 143 
. 144 
. 145 



xii 



CONTENTS. 



TAGE 

Execution of Sir Thomas More . 146 

Death and Character of Erasmus 148 



ESSAY III. 

THE POPES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH 
CENTURIES. 

Professor Ranke's Qualifications as an Historian . . .152 
His historical Researches . . . . * . . - .153 

Object and Scope of the History . . . . . .154 

Schemes of the Pontiffs for extending their Temporal Dominions 155 
Sixtus IV. and Caesar Borgia ....... 157 

Pope Julius II. . • .... • . .158 

Pontificate of Leo X. . . . • • • • • 159 

The Revival of Learning . . . . . • • .160 

Influence of Antiquity upon the Arts 161 

Character of Leo • • • .162 

Elegancies and Refinements of the Court of Rome . . .163 
Effect on the Reformation . . . . • • .165 

Adrian of Utrecht and Clement VII .167 

Vitality of the Roman Catholic Religion . . . . .168 

The Council of Trent . . . . . . . .169 

Ignatius Loyola . . . . • • • • .170 

Paul III. and the Emperor Charles V. . . . . .171 

Cardinal Caraffa elected Pope (Paul IV.) ..... 175 

His Policy and Administration . . . . . .177 

At War with Spain . . . . . . . . . 179 

The Duke of Alva in Rome . . . - . .180 
Reformation of the Church . . . . . . .181 

Pius IV.. 182 

Reconstruction of the Papal Power . . . . . .183 

Pius V. and the Inquisition 184 

He consolidates a League against the Infidels . . . .185 

State of the Papal Territory and Finances. . . . . 1 87 

Sources of the Pope's Revenue ....... 189 

Gregory XIII. . . . . . . . . .190 

Sixtus V. Cardinal Montalto 192 

His Election and vigorous Administration . . . . .193 
Effect of the Religious Revival on Poetry, Art, and Manners of 

the Roman Court . . . . ... . 195 



CONTENTS. 



xiii 



ESSAY IV. 

THE POPES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH 



CENTURIES. 

PAGE 

Altered Position of the Popes as Temporal Princes . . .198 
Pontificate of Sixtus V. . . . . . .199 

Progress and Encroachments of Protestantism .... 200 

Strength of the Papacy . . . . . . . .203 

Order of the Jesuits . . . . . . . . 204 

Their Services to the Holy See 206 

Schism among the Protestants ....... 207 

Policy of the Papacy ........ 209 

Counter-revolution in favour of Catholicism . . . .210 

Its Effect on ecclesiastical Architecture . . . „ . 211 
Jesuit Churches in Southern Germany . . . . .212 

The Pope Head of the Catholic Confederacy . . . .213 

Schemes of Sixtus V ....... 214 

Lofty Pretensions of the Church . . . . . .216 

Eepudiated by the Venetian Republic . . . . .217 

Sixtus and Henry IV. ........ 218 

Santorio, Cardinal of Sanseverino . . . . . .220 

Disappointed of his Election to the Papacy . . . .221 

Clement VIII. and the Re-union of France .... 222 

Collision of J esuits with Monastic Orders ..... 223 

Cardinal Borghese, Paul V. . . . . . .224 

Romanism in the Ascendant . . . . . . .225 

Foundation of the College ' de Propaganda Fide' . . 227 

Roman Catholic Missions . . . . . . . . .228 

Urban VIII, a temporal Prince ..... 229 

Rome hopes to re-unite England . . . . . . 230 

Confederacy of Catholic Powers against England. . . . 232 

Policy of Charles I. and Duke of Buckingham .... 233 

Policy of Urban VIII . . . . . . m 234 

The Thirty Years' War and Peace of Westphalia . . . 235 

The Papal Annals become barren 236 

Financial System of the later Popes 237 

Increase of Debt and annual Deficit 238 

Innocent XI. and Louis XIV . . . . . , .239 

State of Rome and its Territories in the Seventeenth Century . 240 
Deterioration of Agriculture . . . . . . .241 

Poverty of the Peasantry and diminished Prosperity . . . 242 
Papal Government the worst in Europe 243 



xiv CONTENTS. 



ESSAY V. 
CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS 

Qualifications for an Historian of the Jesuits 
Supplementary Volume by M. Cretineau Joly 

Scope of the Work 

Progress of the Reformation arrested by the Jesuits 
Their Monopoly in Education . . 
State of Religion and Morality on the Continent 
Jansenism • • 
Result of Jesuit Dominion 
Literature and the New Philosophy . 
Jesuit Missions to the Heathen . 
Their Settlements in the New World 
Charged with breaking the Rules of their Ordei 
Their Eall in Europe inevitable 
Expelled from the great Catholic Kingdoms 

Death of Clement XIII 

Meeting of the Conclave . 

Division of Parties 

Cardinal de Bernis 

Attempt to precipitate the Election . 
Documents relating to the Conclave . 
List of the Cardinals analysed . 
Instructions of French Court to Cardinal Bernis 
His Character of the ' Sacred College ' 
Plot to bribe the Cardinals . 
Intrigues and Counter-intrigues 
Arrival of the Spanish Cardinals 
Election of Ganganelli .... 
His Character . . • - 
Nature of his Agreement with Spain and France 
Reasons for his Election . . . ■ • 
His Views on the Jesuit Order . 
Joy of the Roman People at his Election . 
Development of his Character . 
His Reluctance to proscribe the Jesuits 
Brief for their Suppression . . 
Fierce Controversy on the Manner of Clement's 
Last Months of his Life .... 
Suspicions of Poison 

His dying Words 

Story of his Final Absolution . 



Death 



CONTENTS. 



XV 



ESSAY VI. 





TAAr'TD TVT7 


De Maistre, Mahler, and Mr. Newman . 


. 297 


Introduction to Mr. Newman's Book . . ... 


. 299 


Bishop Bull's Defence of the Nicene Faith 


. 300 


Anti-Nicene Fathers on the Doctrine of the Trinity . 


. 301 


Biblical Criticism ....... 


. 302 


Arguments of Petavius revived .... 


. 303 


The Canon and Authority of Scripture 


. 304 


Mr. Newman's preliminary Discussion 


. 305 


Distinctness of New Testament Teaching . 


. 307 


Theory of Development stated ..... 


. 309 


Place assigned by it to New Testament 


. 310 


Hints of Scripture developed into Doctrines 


. 311 


Scripture refined into Allegory 


. 3]3 


Early Fathers treated in same Manner 


. 314 


Mediaeval Theology 


. 315 


Development of Christianity ..... 


. 316 


Probabilitv of ' Developing Authority ' 


. 318 


Historical Development of Infallibility 


. 319 


Fallibility of Infallibility 


. 321 


Argument for Infallibility — its Necessity . 


. 322 


Its Attractiveness as an Hypothesis .... 


. 323 


Christianity perfected, while Mankind degenerated 


. 325 


Tests of Fidelity of Development .... 


. 326 


First Test — Preservation of Idea .... 


. 327 


Errors of Mediaeval Church, its Strength . 


. 328 


Essential Ideal of Christianity ..... 


329 


According to Mr. Newman, Monastic 


. 330 


Primaeval Christianity ...... 


. 331 


Heathen Notion of . 


. 333 


Second Test — Continuity of Principle 


. 335 


The Test applied . . . . 


. 337 


Illustrations of the Test ...... 


. .338 


Supremacy of Faith . . 


. 339 


Arbitrement between Eeason and Faith . 


. 341 


Third Test — Power of Assimilation .... 


. 343 


Dogmatic and Sacramental Principles 


. 345 


Catholicism a ' Developed Montanism ' 


. 346 


Heresy of the Fathers 


. 347 


Fourth Test — Early Anticipation .... 


. 348 



a 



xvi 



CONTENTS. 



Generation and Descent of Infidelity 
Fifth Test— Logical Sequence . 
Sixth Test— Preservative Additions . 
Deification of the Virgin Mary 
' Early Anticipations ' of the Fathers 
Arianism its unconscious Parent 
Its Motive analysed .... 
1 Additions ' a Confession of Weakness 
Harmony of New Testament doctrine 
Seventh Test — Chronic Continuance 
Intermittence of 

Papal Power in Middle Ages, Conservative of Christianity 

Greatness of the See of Rome 

Development of Christianity in Morality and Social Influence . 

Fallacy of Argument from assumed solitary Permanence of Rome 

Prayers for Conversion of England to Roman Catholicism . 

Interpretation of . . • • • 

Effect of the Destruction of English Church . 

Christianity of the Future 



PAGK 

350 

351 

352 

353 

355 

356 

358 

360 

361 

362 

363 

364 

365 

366 

367 

368 

370 

371 

373 



ESSAY VII. 
RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 

Essential unity of Christianity .... 
M. Michelet's view of Religion 
Character of M. Michelet as an Historian . 
The Family the Guarantee of Political Stability 
Comparative Morality of France and other Countries 
Principles at Stake . 
Office and Duties of the Clergy 
Theory of the Church of England . 
The Confessional out of Date . 
Its Influence in Former Times . 
The Parent of Casuistry . . . 
Its evil Effect upon Morality . 
Picture of the Confessional by M. Michelet 
The Director and 1 Direction ' . 
The Secret of Jesuit Power . . . 
Origin of the Monastic System . 
The Celibacy of the Secular Clergy . 
Its Advocates at the Present Day 
Monastic Notions ..... 



CONTENTS. 



' Lives of the Saints ' 

Mohler's Argument in Favour of Celibacy 

Its superior Sanctity not inculcated by Scripture 

Language of our Lord and St. Paul . 

Passage in St. Luke's Gospel 

Earliest Christian Institutions . 

Gnostic Sects ......■« 

Pauline Ideas of Evil 

Protest of the Baden Clergy . 

Variance between the Eastern and Western Churches 
Celibacy the Law of the Western Church . 
Effect of Celibacy upon Character . 
Social Advantages of rejecting the Law 
Married and unmarried Missionaries 
Eeligious Influence of a married Clergy . 
1 Independence of the Church ' discussed . 
Kelation between Church and State . 

Established Churches 

Married Clergy sufficiently independent . 
Incidental Advantages of voluntary Celibacy 

Of a married Clergy 

Test of clerical Fitness. > 
Ecclesiastical ' Power ' a Phantom . 
Abrogation of 1 Authority ' in English Church . 
Principle of Toleration destructive of 
Present Mission of the Clergy .... 
To be examples of the Gospel .... 

Abhorrers of Untruth 

Strauss and £ Lives of the Saints ' compared 



ESSAY VIII. 
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES 

Approach to Modern Eome ..... 
To Ancient Eome by the Appian Way 

The 'Street of Tombs' 

Burial Places of the Poor 

Practice of Burning the Dead ..... 

Canina's ' Via Appia ' 

Bovillse 

Monument of the Emperor Gallienus 
Of Messala and Licinus 

Villa of the Quintilii 



xvii 



. 401 

. 404 

. 406 

. 408 

. 410 

. 411 

. 413 

. 414 

. 415 

. 416 

. 417 

. 418 

. 421 

. 422 

. 424 

. 426 

. 428 

. 430 

. 431 

. 433 

. 434 

. 436 

. 438 

. 439 

. 441 

. 442 

. 443 

. 444 

. 445 



. 446 

. 448 

. 450 

. 451 

. 452 

. 453 

. 454 

. 455 

. 456 

. 458 



xviii 



CONTENTS. 



Beauty of the Tombs 

Seneca 

Tomb of Oecilia Metella . 

OfPriscilla 

Of the Scipios 

Christian Reverence for the Dead 
Growth of Christian Community 
Practice of Cremation abhorrent to . 
Family Sepulchres . . - . 

Origin of the Catacombs . 
Cavaliere de Rossi on the Christian Catacombs 
They conform to the Geological Strata 
Situation of the chisf Catacombs 
First Explorers of the Catacombs 
Cemeteries by the Appian Way 
History and Archaeology of the Catacombs 
Dodwell ' De Paucitate Martyrum ' . 
Necessity for capacious Cemeteries . 
Catacomb of Callistus 
Tomb and Epigraph of Cornelius 
Monument of S. Caecilia . 
Reign of Diocletian 
Pontificate of Damasus . . . 
Rome wasted by the Barbarians 
Christian Art in the Catacombs 
M. de Rossi on the Symbol IX6YS . 
Representations of the Virgin and Child 
Picture in the Cemetery of Priscilla . 
Argument from its Artistic Beauty . 
Conclusion ..... 



Errata. 

Page 3, line 7 from bottom for Michael read Nicholas. 
„ 9, ,, 3, /or six read seven. 
„ 24, „ 6, for 1594 read 1494. 

„ 25, „ 10 from bottom, for November 27 read November 17. 



ESSAYS. 



I. 

SAVONAROLA.' 

(June, 1856.) 

Savonarola! — Was he hypocritical impostor? self-deluded 
fanatic ? holy, single-minded Christian preacher ? heaven- 
commissioned prophet ? wonder-working saint ? martyr, only 
wanting the canonization which was his due ? Was he the 
turbulent, priestly demagogue, who desecrated his holy office 
by plunging into the intrigue and strife of civic politics, or a 
courageous and enlightened lover of liberty; one who had 
conceived, and had almost achieved, the splendid notion of an 
equal republic of Christian men, acting on the highest Chris- 
tian principles ? Was he — a subordinate question, yet not 
without interest — a rude Iconoclast, or one who would have 
purified and elevated art to the height of its holy mission ? 
Had he more of S. Bernard, of Arnold of Brescia, of Grerson, 

1 The Life and Martyrdom of Savonarola. By E. E. Madden, M.E.I.A 
Second edition. In 2 vols. London, 1854. Jerome Savonarola; sa Vie, scs 
Predications, ses Ecrits. Par F. T. Perrens. Paris. Turin. 2 tomes. 1853. 
Hieronymus Savonarola und seine Zeit. Von A. Gr. Eudelbach. Hamburg, 1835. 
G-irolamo Savonarola aus grossentheils handschriftlicher Quellen. Von Fr. Karl 
Meier. Berlin, 1836. The Life and Times of Girolamo Savonarola. 12mo. 
London, 1843. Pocsie di Jeronimo Savonarola. Per cura di Audin de Eians. 
Firenze, 1847. Archivio Storico Italiano. Appendice. Tomoviii. Firenze, 1850. 
Lectures on Great Men — Grirolamo Savonarola. By the late Eev. Frederick Myers 
London, 1856. Appendice alia Storia dei Municipi Italiani. Da P. E. Griudici. 
Firenze, 1850. 

B 



2 SAVONAROLA. C EssAY L 

or of Wycliffe? Was he the forerunner of Luther or of 
Loyola, of Knox or of S. Philippe Neri, even of John of 
Wen, or our Fifth-monarchy men? Since his own day and 
evln in his own days, these questions have heen agitated m 
his own Church, and among the Reformed Churches, with 
singular contrariety, so as to form almost a solitary exception 
o the usual resolute partisanship. He who was burned under 
Papal excommunication, in direct obedience, or at least sub- 
milsion, to a Papal mandate, has been the object of pa— 
vindication by very zealous Koman Cathohcs ; Ms teaUfi" 
has been demanded, it might seem almost granted ; a legend 
has gathered around his life, laying claim to, and obtammg 
implicit belief, and, considering the late period of his life, 
almost as prolific in miracle as that of Becket or of Bernard 
Though hailed by the earlier reformers, with zeal almost 
equally blind to his real character, as one of themselves; as 
the disciple of Huss and Jerome of Prague; as the harbinger 
of Luther; yet the colder, later age of Protestantism cast 
Mm aside almost as a poor impostor. Such was the verdict 
of Bayle; such that of a writer far more serious than Bayle, 
Buddeus. To others, as to Roscoe, he is a wild fanatic. The 
enemv of the enlightened and magnificent, and all but perfect 
Lorenzo de' Medici, must be an enemy to all true wisdom, as 
well as to the real interests of Florence, which, at its height 
of glory and prosperity during Lorenzo's life, at his death 
began to darken towards its decline. 

This historical and religious mystery, if we may judge by 
the list of works at the opening of our article, has neither los 
its interest nor found its acknowledged solution. It is not 
from the want of biographers that the Life of Savonarola h as 
not appeared in its clear and full light We might, ^withou 
difficulty, have enlarged the copious catalogue. Of all these 
lives the 'Jerome Savonarola' of M. Perrens, in our judgment, 
approaches much the nearest to a just appreciation as well as 
to a clear and vivid life of the famous Dominican. The Padre 
Marchese, to whom we are indebted for the letters and other 



Essay I.] SAVONAKOLA. 3 

documents published, with valuable observations, in the 
'Archivio Storico Italiano,' had contemplated a Life of the 
Florentine preacher. The failure of his eyesight compelled 
him to abandon his design. M. Perrens has had the advantage 
of his valuable advice, in a work which he only undertook 
when thus given up by Padre Marchese. He visited Florence, 
to make himself master of his subject, and especially of the 
works of Savonarola. He professes to have read the whole of 
his sermons— no light task— and, to a considerable extent, we 
can avouch that he has read them well and carefully ; and 
certainly from no other source but his own writings can the 
character, the influence, or the fate of this singular man be 
judged with historic truth or justice. Savonarola must be his 
own biographer. The preacher, the prophet, the politician, 
even the martyr, must speak for himself, and he does speak, 
in his own still stirring words ; words which, however strange 
and wearisome from their perpetual iteration, reveal the man 
in all his living lineaments, his powers, his objects, his passions, 
the secret of his authority, even the causes of his fatal end. 
Savonarola appears not only the prophet and preacher, but, 
what must never be lost sight of, the Man, the Italian, the 
Monk. M. Perrens has paid especial attention to the corre- 
sponding dates of his works, and the events of his life : we can 
thus follow the Preacher, step by step, day by day, up through 
the rapid path of his ascent to fame and power, down the still 
more rapid and abrupt precipice of his fall. 

The family of Savonarola came from Padua, and a gate in 
that city bore their name. His grandfather, Michael Savona- 
rola, a physician of great fame, had been invited to Ferrara 
by Nicholas Prince of Este. His father, Michael, had five 
sons, of whom Grirolamo was the third, and two daughters. 
His mother's name was Helena Buonaccorsi. Grirolamo, as 
was also his brother Albert, was destined for his grandfather's 
profession. They were seemingly a religious family. Michael, 
the grandfather, had exercised that blessed privilege of the 
Christian physician, the gratuitous care of the poor. Grirolamo 



SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. 

4 

v 01 14.^9 Even in his boyhood he was 
™ h 7^TZ he W — e; be Lght lonely 
X av^ - gardens of the ^ Pa^e - 
luth of Ferrara held their joyous meetmgs. There was a 
T2 of religious passiou iu his soul which reqmred only, to 
Srred to decide his future life. His protestation (cited by 
S Perrens) that iu early youth he had determined not to he 
f^nk on y shows that the thought was already brooding in 
to htr As the world opened upon him, its religious and 
^ ral tkness appalled, repelled, drove him to seek any 
Actuary --ere he might dwell alone with himse f and with 
Sod Nor was this the aet of a timid, over-scrupu ous super 
Sous mind. Perhaps in no period of the civihzed world 
^ Christ was the moral eondition of mankind, m some 
Sits, in a lower and more degraded state; never were the 
two ar at enemies of human happiness-ferocity and sen- 
riity-1 dominant over all classes; and in those vmes Italy 
rone sense the model and teacher of the world, enjoyed and 
r i Wed a fatal pre-eminence. Some who read history 
StT jSlu; Sntfattrihute much of this dreary state to 
2 "wof letter, The paganism of the more cultivated 
^s is denounced as the dire enemy which .olenOy o 
iusidiously put an end to the ages of faith. But classical 
;* did not thrust religion from her throne; ; she ^ came 
I the vacant seat, and offered all she cou d offer to the 
desolate and yearning mind of man. Men heheved m Plato, 
h Istthoselho ought to have taught Christ J = 
of their belief in Christ. In the highest places of the Church 
£ the most flagrant apostasy from the ^ P = ^ 
the Founder of the Church. Th 1S subject wrU & ce tsetf 
upou us too frequently during our survey of the lite 
Savonarola. His favourite studies too were guided and stimu- 
li by this intuitive predilection. He turned from the great 
iorities of the profession, Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna. 
S s ^ way to Jstotle, to his ethics and metaphysics, h,s 
knowledge of which betrays itself even in his most impassioned 



Essay I.] SAVONAROLA. 5 

sermons ; but still more to Thomas Aquinas. He may at first 
only have sought in the cloister, as he declared in one of his 
later sermons, his two dearest objects — liberty and rest, freedom 
from domestic cares, 2 the perfection, or, at least, the security, 
of his own moral and religious being. But his letter to his 
father, written at the time of his flight to Bologna, is far 
better evidence of his motives at that time than sentences 
scattered about his later sermons. It was on April 24, 1475 
(he was then twenty-two years and a half old), that Savonarola 
deserted for ever his father's house, and knocked for admittance 
at the door of the Dominican convent in Bologna. The 
Dominican order boasted among its disciples St. Thomas 
Aquinas, the greatest of the Schoolmen, the object of the young 
man's ardent study; and if profound religion survived — the 
religion which, while it trained the intellect by the scholastic 
learning, left free scope to zealous passion and even to excur- 
sive imagination within the bounds of Church theology — it was 
in the cloisters of the order of Preachers. Two days after, the 
young man sent to his father his memorable letter, in which 
the calm, deliberate determination of the youthful ascetic is 
exquisitely touched with the tenderness of a loving son : — 

You who know so well how to appreciate the perishable things of 
earth, judge not with the passionate judgement of a woman ; but, look- 
ing to truth, judge according to reason, whether I am not right in 
abandoning the world. The motive which determines me to enter into 
a religious life is this : the great misery of the world, the misery of 
man ; the rapes, the adulteries, the robberies, the pride, the idolatry, 
the monstrous blasphemies by which the world is polluted, for there is 
none that doeth good, no not one. Many times a-day have I uttered this 
verse with tears, — 

1 Heu fuge crudeles terras ! fuge littus avarum.' 

I could not support the enormous wickedness of most of the people in 
Italy. Everywhere I saw virtue despised, vice in honour. When God, 
in answer to my prayer, condescended to show me the right way, could 
I decline it ? O gentle Jesus, may I suffer a thousand deaths rather 

2 There is a vague story, resting on but slight authority, that Savonarola was 
the victim of a tender but honourable passion for a beautiful female. 



6 SAVONAROLA. [Essay L 

than oppose thy will and snow myself ungrateful for thy goodness. . . . 
Think not that I have not endured the deepest affliction in separating 
myself from you. Never, since I was born, have I suffered such bitter 
mental torment as at the moment when I abandoned my own father 
to make the sacrifice of my body to Jesus Christ, and to surrender my 
will into the hands of those whom I had never seen. Ttou complain of 
the secresy of my departure, I should rather say, my flight In truth 
I suffered such grief and agony of heart when I left you, that, if I had 
betrayed myself, I verily believe that my heart would have broken, and 
I should have changed my purpose. In mercy, then, most lovmg 
father, dry your tears, and add not to my pain and sorrow, lo be 
Caesar, I would not return to the world; but, like you, I am of flesh 
and blood ; the senses wage a cruel war with the reason, and I would 
not give vantage to the devil. The first days, the bitter days, will 
sconce over. As a man of strong mind, I beseech you, comfort my 
mother, and both of you send me, I entreat you, your blessing. 

Savonarola, like all men, especially Italian men, of his tem- 
perament, sought expression for his passionate feelings in poetry. 
The able editor of his few poems, M. de Eians, 4 assigns his 
earliest ode, ' De Ruina Mundi,' to some period a year or two 
before his flight to Bologna. It breathes the same sensitive 
horror of the awful moral spectacle around him, and already 
Rome is the centre and source of all wickedness ■ 

La terra h si oppressa da ogni vizio 

Che mai da se non levera la soma, 

A terra se ne va il suo capo, Roma, 

Per mai non tornar al grande offizio. — St. 5. 

If this first poem revealed the stern aversion of his heart to the 
sins of the world, his second, 'On the Ruin of the Church,' 
showed no less his vivid imagination, already revelling in that 
allegorical significance which he assigned to every word of the 
Scripture, and in the boundless symbolism of the Church. The 
Ode is a string of brilliant material images, each of which has 
its latent spiritual meaning : jewels, diamonds, lamps, sapphires, 

3 The letter may he read in Latin in the Epistola Spirituals published by 
P. Qxietif; in Italian, in Burlamacchi ; in French, in M. Perrens ; m our own 
tongue, in both the English Lives. 

* Poesie di Savonarola. Firenze, 1847. 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



7 



white robes, golden zones, white horses. But Italy lost no 
poet by the elevation of Savonarola to be her greatest preacher. 
Grirolamo's verses are hard and harsh ; all his higher odes are 
utterly deficient in the exquisite music, the crystalline purity 
of Petrarch ; his more lowly and familiar stanzas, if they have 
the rudeness want the simple fervour of St. Francis, still more 
the vigour of Jacopone da Todi. We fear his poetry itself 
would hardly have disenchanted the popular ear from the pro- 
fane and pagan, but light and festive, carnival songs of Lorenzo 
de' Medici. Savonarola's poetry is to be sought in his sermons 
and even in some of his treatises. 

There could be no doubt that Savonarola would equal the 
austerest sons of St. Dominic in the congenial virtues of the 
cloister. Yet though sternly submissive to the rigorous rules 
of his Order as to fastings and mortifications, there does not 
always appear that extravagance of asceticism in which some 
of the older anchorites and the more famous monks luxuriated 
and gloried. He has no special aspirations after peculiar filth 
and misery ; and, throughout his teaching, the advice to others 
on these subjects, though in harmony with the rules of his 
Church, has a tone of moderation and good sense ; bodily 
austerities are but subordinate, of low esteem, in comparison 
with the graces and virtues of the heart and soul. No breath 
of calumny ever attainted the personal purity of Savonarola. 
When he was the spiritual lord of Florence, if he condescended 
now and then to notice imputations of interested motives, of 
covetousness or spiritual extortion, it was to reject them with 
a defiant scorn, with an appeal to his own lofty disdain of 
wealth, to his known and lavish charities to the poor. He 
might have been, but disdained to be, wealthy. He was even 
above that more fatal and common avarice of his Church ; he 
sternly condemned the prodigal expenditure of wealth on 
magnificent buildings, on church ornaments, the golden censers, 
the jewelled pixes, the rich embroidered vestments: he would 
still be the simple, self-denying monk, not the splendid 
churchman. 



3 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. 

In his obedience he was a mild brother of his Order ; as yet 
a humble disciple, he was in all respects strictly subordinate 
to his rule, and to the authority of his superiors. In his 
studies alone he struggled with gentle pertinacity for some 
freedom, which he at length obtained. He submitted to the 
common discipline of the Order, the study of the Fathers, of 
scholastic theology with all its subtle perplexities and all its 
arid dialectics: but his heart rebelled; and dwelt with still 
increasing interest and exclusiveness on the Holy Scriptures. 
But it was not his heart alone which found its rest and consolation 
in the simple truths and peaceful promises of the Gospel. It 
was the bold and startling imagery, the living figures, the 
terrible denunciatory language, the authoritative rebukes of 
sin in the name of a terrible and avenging God, the awful 
words of God himself, as uttered and avouched by the ancient 
prophets, which clave to his memory, kindled his soul, and 
became at length his own, as he supposed, not less inspired 
language. His was not anxious searching of the Scriptures, in 
order to find out the way for the salvation of his own soul. 5 
As to that way he had implicit faith in the doctrines and in 
the authority of the Church. He had the simple conviction 
that this was by faith and holiness of life, faith inspired by 
grace, of which holiness was the necessary manifestation. But 
the Bible he felt, by the terrific power of its language, by the 
deep meaning of its phrases and imagery, and by its direct 
application to the state of existing things, could alone shake 
the perishing world around him, and beat up the universal 
wickedness which comprehended the people, the clergy, the 
Pope himself. At first indeed his mind was in the fetters of 
his earlier and colder studies. According to the usage of his 
Order he was commissioned to visit many of the cities of 

s There are four copies of the Scriptures in different libraries at Florence, 
annotated by the hand of Savonarola. The notes themselves are in a kind of short 
hand, but there is an interpretation in the MSS. The passage extracted by 
M. Perrens is genuine Savonarola— a record of the wild dreams which crossed his 
slumbering or his waking imagination, in the prophetic significance of which he 
seemed to have implicit faith.— Appendix, torn. i. p. 458. 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



9 



Lombardy, to administer spiritual instruction, to exhort, to 
hear confession, and in every ordinary way to promote religion. 
In 1482, six years after his admission into the Dominican 
order, he was at Ferrara, his native city. He went there with 
reluctance, for no man is a prophet in his own country, and 
he compares himself with unsuspected irreverence to the 
Carpenter's son, to whom his native Nazareth paid but slight 
respect — a singular illustration of his prescience of his own 
high powers and destiny, as well as of his simplicity. 6 Ferrara 
was threatened with war by the Venetians. Most of the 
Dominicans were ordered by their superior to retire from their 
convent in Ferrara, S. Maria dei Angeli. Among those who 
were sent to Florence was Fra Grirolamo. He was received in' 
the magnificent convent of the order, San Marco, hereafter to 
be the scene of his glory, and his fate. The name of Fra 
Grirolamo was already not without celebrity, but it was for his 
learning and for his sanctity. Many stories were abroad of 
conversions which he had wrought, hardly less than preter- 
natural ; the number of his disciples in later days threw back 
the halo of miracle around many of his earlier acts. On a 
voyage from Ferrara to Mantua he had been shocked by the 
blasphemies and obscenities of the rude boatmen. After half 
an hour of his earnest catechising, eleven of them threw them- 
selves at his feet, in profound contrition, confessing their sins, 
and imploring absolution. 

Florence witnessed the first recorded instance of his public 
preaching. By the admission, it may almost be said, by the 
boast of his admiring biographers, this first attempt was a 
total, it might seem a hopeless, failure, such as might have 
crushed a less ardent man. He was appointed to preach the 
Careme (the course of Lent sermons) in the great church of 
San Lorenzo. The expectation was high ; his countenance was 
known to be fine and expressive ; his form, though slight, was 

6 In his beautiful letter to his mother, published by T\ Marchese, Archivio 
Storico, p. 112; no one who reads this, and no more than this, can doubt the 
perfect sincerity of Savonarola. 



10 SAVONAROLA. O SAY L 

Ml of grace and strength. But his voice was thin and harsh ; 
his delivery unimpressive, his gestures rude and awkward; his 
language, not yet disembarrassed of dry scholastic form, heavy 
and dull. His audience dwindled down to a still diminishing 
few ; not twenty-five persons lingered in the vacant nave. His 
superiors, whether in kindness, or suspecting his slumbering 
powers, sent him during two consecutive years (1484-5) to 
preach at San Gemignano. Still all was cold and ineffective ; a 
scanty and listless audience, or vacant aisles. He retired to 
Florence and reassumed the humble office of reader; it might 
seem that his career of fame and of usefulness was closed for 



ever. 



On a sudden, at Brescia, he burst out ; appalling, entran- 
cing, shaking the souls of men, piercing to their heart of hearts, 
and drawing them in awestruck crowds before the foot of his 
pulpit. The secret was in the text-book of his sermons. It 
was the Apocalypse of St. John. Ant insanum inveniet aut 
faciet : such was the axiom of no less a person than Calvin on 
the study of this mysterious book ; an axiom probably not 
much known to those who hold the peculiar doctrines of the 
French reformer among ourselves. If we receive, according to 
the letter, the account of this Brescian sermon, its causes and 
its consequences, as related in the life by Burlamacchi, it might 
be adduced as illustrating the wisdom of the great Genevese 
reformer. Not only in preaching on the chapter concerning 
the 23 (24) elders, did he declare that one of the elders had 
been commissioned to reveal to him the terrible doom which 
awaited Italy, and especially the city of Brescia ; not only did 
he summon Brescia to repentance, for 'fathers would see their 
children massacred and dragged through the streets' — a 
scourge which would fall upon the city during the lifetime of 
many there present ; but besides this, it was averred by Fra 
Angelo of Brescia that, on the night of the Nativity, in the 
convent of Brescia (the sermon had been preached on St. 
Andrew's Day), Fra Girolamo had stood in an ecstasy for five 
hours, entirely motionless, with his face shining so as to illumi- 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



11 



nate the whole church. 7 From this time Savonarola was no 
longer a preacher, he was a prophet. 8 Already, by his own 
account, he had struck this chord at San Gremignano, but with a 
feeble hand, and it had not vibrated to the hearts of his hearers : 
he had preached the scourging, the renewal of the Church, and 
that quickly ; but he had preached it not by divine revelation, 
but as an inference from the Scriptures. 9 This more sober 
statement might seem to comprehend his preaching at Brescia, 
and all the period of four years (1486-1490) which elapsed be- 
fore his return to Florence. But the study of the Apocalypse, 
and the congenial study of the Prophets of the Old Testa- 
ment, neither found Savonarola mad, nor drove him to madness, 
if we take madness in its ordinary and vulgar sense. Yet if to 
be possessed by one great, noble, and holy aim, and in the ex- 
clusive and absorbing pursuit of that aim sometimes to pass 
over the imperceptible boundary of prudence and reason : if 
conscious of the undoubted mission of all good men, and 
especially of all in holy orders, or who wore the cowl of the 
monk, to denounce with peculiar authority the divine wrath 
against human wickedness, and to summon the Church to re- 
pentance, he forgot at times — or thought suspended in his own 
behalf — the ordinary laws of Divine Providence ; if he did not 
reverently admit that the All-Wise jealously reserves in the 
mysteries of his own councils the 6 times and the seasons ; ' if 
he at times lost his Christian patience, and no longer uttered 
in humble expostulation, Holy and True, how long ? and 
imagined that he saw the sword already bare, and heard 

7 Burlamacchi, apud Mansi, p. 533. 

8 A prophecy of such ruin to Brescia might have been hazarded at any time 
with no doubtful chance of its veracity. No city was so often besieged, few suf- 
fered such frequent desolation. It was said to have been fulfilled in the storming 
by the French some years after. 

9 ' E atidando a San Gremignano a predicarsi, comincia a predicarne, e in due annf 
eh' io vi predicai, proponendo queste conclusioni che la chiesa aveva a essere flagel- 
lata, rinovata, e presto. E questo non avcvo per rivelazione, ma per ragione delle 
Scritture. E cosi dicevo, e in questo mudo predicai a Brescia, e in molte altri 
luoghi di Lombardia qualche volta di queste cose, dove stette anni circa a quattro.* 
— Processo. Baluz. Miscell. iv. 529. 



12 



SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. 



it summoned to go through the land -if these things are 
insanity, so far must be admitted the madness of Savonarola. 
But as that madness in no way whatever lessens his responsi- 
bility if it tempers our astonishment, and permits our cool 
judgement to trace the causes of his failure, and to a certain 
decree of his fatal end, so it gives full scope to our admiration 
of that which assuredly entitles him (by a much better claim 
than doubtful miracles, seen by blind disciples) to canonization 
in the esteem of the wise and good. Girolamo Savonarola was 
the apostle and martyr of truth in an age and land, in which 
truth was more contemptuously trodden under foot than m 
most periods of the Christian Church. 

During the whole of the obscure period of four years, during 
which we dimly trace the movements of Savonarola in the 
cities of Lombardy, before his second and final establishment 
in Florence, his fame was becoming more acknowledged not 
only as the preacher, or, it may be, the prophet, but as a man 
of profound thought, clear and subtle solution of theological 
difficulties, wise counsel, and grave authority. At a council of 
his order holden in Keggio, he displayed those qualities so 
entirely opposite to the accomplishment of a passionate and 
fanatic preacher. It is said that the famous Pico di Mirandola, 
the uncle of the prophet's future disciple and historian, who 
was present at the council, was so impressed with his transcen- 
dant abilities, as to speak strongly in his favour to his friend 
Lorenzo de' Medici. Yet there seems no evidence that Savona- 
rola, when he settled in Florence more than three years after- 
wards, received any invitation from Lorenzo ; it was almost an 
accidental arrangement of his superior which sent him again, 
as the humble reader, to the convent of St. Mark. Neither did 
the Order, nor did Savonarola himself, nor did Lorenzo, on the 
news of his arrival, foresee that in that lowly friar, who 
travelled on foot, and almost sunk under fatigue at the village 
of Pianora, eight miles from Bologna, Florence was to behold 
the restorer of her liberties, the ruler of her popular mind, the 
spiritual lord who should hold theocratical sway over her for 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



13 



several years in the name of Grod and of Christ. Later legend 
embellishes his journey by a celestial companion, who attended 
him to his inn, fed him with refreshing meat and wine, and 
guarded him to the gate of S. Grallo. 

Lorenzo the Magnificent had now been for many years the 
Lord of Florence. His age has been called the Augustan age 
of Italian letters (strangely enough in the native land of Dante, 
Ariosto, and Tasso), but he resembled Augustus in more than 
his patronage of poets and philosophers, — in the skill with 
which, like his grandfather Cosmo, he disguised his aristocracy 
under republican forms. On his contested character we must 
not enter ; nor inquire how far he compensated to Florence, 
for the loss of her turbulent, it must be acknowledged, her 
precarious, liberties, by peace, by wealth, by splendour, by the 
cultivation of arts and of letters ; by making her the centre and 
the source of the new civilization of the world. 

Since the failure of the Pazzi conspiracy, Lorenzo had main- 
tained his temperate but undisputed sway in Florence. His 
only danger was from without, and this he had averted by 
his wisdom and courage, by his bold visit to the court of his 
mortal enemy, the King of Naples ; he had brought back peace 
to imperilled Florence, security to his own government. But 
the- Pazzi conspiracy is so fearfully illustrative of the state of 
Italian, of Papal morals, at the time when Savonarola began 
his career, that it must not be altogether passed by. The 
object of that conspiracy was not the freedom of Florence, 
though it was to overthrow the power of the Medici. It was 
the substitution of the rule of another faction and family, 
through the authority of the Pazzi. The revolution was 
deliberately planned at Rome in the Papal counsels ; the Pope's 
nephew was the prime mover, the leading agent an archbishop, 
its means foul murder. The place of that murder was the 
great church of Florence, the time of that murder the celebra- 
tion of the Mass, the signal for that murder the elevation of 
the Host, the presentation to the adoring people (as all be- 
lieved) of the Grod of mercy and of love. Lorenzo saw the dagger 



14 SAVONAROLA. Essay I. 

driven home to the heart of his brother Giuliano ; but escaped 
himself by a strange accident. The ruffian to whom his death 
was assigned, a man whose hands were dyed with a hundred 
murders, and who was inured to the death-shriek of innocent 
men, scrupled at his task ; he would not murder in a church! 
A priest was easily found with none of those compunctious 
visitino-s ; but the priest's hand was feeble and unpractised, and 
Lorenzo came off with a slight wound. The Pope's complicity 
is beyond all doubt. 

A confession of one of the ruffians was published, from which 
it appeared that the Pope had repeatedly declared against 
bloodshed, as unbecoming his office; but after this special 
protest, he had given these merciless men, who all the while 
declared that without blood their plot must fail, his full sanc- 
tion. Nor was this all. The Bull of Sixtus IV. (we presume 
that it bore the awful prelude, 'in sempiternam memoriam,' 
for the eternal memory of man), his Bull of excommunication 
against the Florentines for their vengeance against the mur- 
derers, still glares in the eyes of posterity. Of the murder in 
the church, of the murder at the elevation of the Host, there 
is not one word of abhorrence. It is treated as a mere ordinary 
fray between two Florentine factions : but on the hanging the 
Archbishop of Pisa, the murderer, taken in the fact, of whose 
guilt it was impossible to entertain the shadow of a doubt ; on 
his execution the Bull assumes all its denunciatory terrors : 
it is the most awful sacrilege, a crime deserving the most 
dreadful torments here and hereafter. And Sixtus IV., against 
whose character there were other most foul charges, it may be 
calumnies, but charges published at the time at Eome, and 
throughout Italy; Sixtus, who almost began that system of 
princely nepotism, the foundation not of estates but of princi- 
palities for his needy, rapacious, and too often profligate 
relatives, was the head of the Christian world, when the holy 
Savonarola cast his eyes abroad upon that Church, in which 
he hoped to find the spirit, the sanctity of the Lord and his 
apostles. The successor of Sixtus IV. was Innocent VIII. (Cibo). 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



15 



The poetical pasquinades of the day stigmatised this Pope as 
the father of sixteen bastards ; charity and truth brought the 
number down to seven ; two only survived to benefit by their 
father's elevation ; his defenders therefore have asserted that 
there were but two. Innocent was the first Pope who cared 
not to disguise his parental relation under the specious name 
of nepotism. But the new Pope was no longer hostile ; he 
was in close alliance with Florence and the House of Medici ; 
his son was married to a daughter of Lorenzo. In a well- 
known letter Lorenzo (so much had the advancement of the 
Pope's kindred become a matter of course) gently reproaches 
Innocent with the timid reserve with which he had hitherto 
provided for his own flesh and blood. Innocent was to be 
succeeded, almost before Savonarola had begun his more 
famous career, by Alexander VI., a Pope, from whom papal 
zeal shrinks, and has hardly ventured on the forlorn hope of 
apology. 1 In truth this period, even when compared with 
that at the close of the tenth century, and the worst times in 
Avignon, and during the schism, is the darkest in Papal 
history. The few brighter years after the Council of Constance, 
of Martin V., of Nicolas V., and in spite of the confessions of 
his youth, and his flagrant tergiversations, of Pius II., had 
raised the pontificate to some part at least of its old awe and 
respect. Towards the close of the fifteenth century the Popes 
had become Italian princes ; their objects were those of the 
Viscontis or Sforzas of Milan : it might seem their sole aim 
to found principalities in their houses ; their means were the 
same, — intrigue, treachery, violence, and rapacity. Such was 
the state of the Papacy when the Dominican, now arising to 
the zenith of his fame, and master of an eloquence unheard 
for centuries in the pulpits of Italy ; with a character altogether 
blameless, and as yet unsuspected, probably unconscious, of 

1 It appears from Dr. Madden that a French writer has undertaken this foolish 
task, but we must acknowledge that this ultramontane school, the school of Audin 
and Rohrbacher, as to historical value, is so far below contempt, that it hardly 
touches our curiosity : paradox must be ingenious and plausible even to amuse. 



SAVONAROLA, [Essay I. 

Id 

, j • =. with the sole purpose of promoting the 

political desrgns; wxtl the ^so P P t rf 

religion of the people, took up Ms abod^ 

M t ^S^JSl I* three years 

upon Cosmo had delighted to visit within its walls the 
Z y Intonino, afterwards archbishop of Florence, and m good 
Llasain, ^^"T^. 
r"wrLw ^ in all their samtly beauty, the 
On the wa ho - n its ceUs had prayed and 

SSpSdXi*. «• W- crowded 
X themes of the holy images which he 

• »<* it were, embodied prayer. St. Mark is per 

P . I- works of Fra Angelico, forget tHat its 

— er e W no - holy but lessp— , - 

of Fra Girolamo. But with what rapture must the Pr acher 
have gazed on the congenial paintings of Fra Angehco ! 

From this time Savonarola is to a certarn degree Job own 
v V • the successive volumes of his sermons, from 

tala development of his eloquence, his influence, and hr 
till be rises to his height, the legislator and ruler of 

^began with the humble office of Reader, that is, the In- 
structor of the novices, perhaps of the tertiaries, the lay mem- 
Sfof the Order. The sphere of his first efforts was a close 
12, of moderate dimensions. The whole body of faars wrthxn 
ffie convent, and pious hearers from without crowded the 
Harrow room ; he descended into the garden of the convent, 

. The letter-press of the beautiful eugra.iugs from these freseoes is by ,he Padre 
•Marchese. p . (i$±Q) in a volume intended as 

2z^7:zS^ - i — - *- - 

neret to find, been abandoned. 

« Perrens-2?ecAe«j*«« suppUmcnf aires, torn. u. p. 40/. 



EsSAY I -I SAVONAROLA. 



17 



and, under the damask rosebushes, or in the porch of a chapel, 
continued his pious instructions. There was something still of 
want of freedom in his gestures, something harsh in his into- 
nation, which offended the fastidious eyes and ears of the 
Florentines.* But these defects fell away, or were lost in 
his deep earnestness and kindling tire. There was a general 
demand that, from the lowly chair of the teacher, he should 
mount the authoritative pulpit. Savonarola at first hesitated 
to accept the offer of his Superior, the Prior of St. Mark. His 
biographers assert (legend now begins to speak) that, when he 
yielded, he said, ' To-morrow I shall begin to preach, and I 
shall preach for eight years.' The Apocalypse was again his 
inspiring theme. On the 1st of August (1491), on a Simday, 

I began publicly to expound the Revelations in our church of St. 
Mark. During the course of the year, I continued to develope to the 
Florentines these three propositions: < That the Church would be 
renewed in our time.' < Before that renovation, God would strike all 
Italy with a fearful chastisement.' < That these things would happen 
shortly.' I laboured to demonstrate these three points to my hearers 
and to persuade them by probable arguments, by allegories drawn from 
the Sacred Scriptures, by other similitudes and parables drawn from 
what was going on in the Church. I insisted on reasons of this kind • 
and I dissembled the knowledge which God gave me of these things in 
other ways, because men's spirits appeared to me not yet in a state fit to 
comprehend such mysteries. 

In all the early sermons, Savonarola is as yet neither tribune 
nor prophet ; but he is a preacher such as perhaps Italy had 
never before heard. He himself describes perpetually what 
deadened the force of all Italian preaching— subtle logical 
distinctions, profane and idle similitudes, illustrations from 
heathen poets, from Dante or Petrarch; he compares the 
preachers of his day to the singers and mourners in the house 
of the ruler of the synagogue, whose mournful music made 
the soul weep, but could not raise the dead. Savonarola might 
now seem to have studied hardly more than one book, and 

5 Perrens, p. 42, with the quotation from the Magliabecchian Library, and from 
his book Be Veritate Prophetica. 

C 



t g SAVONAROLA. L Emay *> 

that the Book of Books: he is said to have learnt the Bible 
bv heart. But it was that hook, read by an imagination which 
opened out the biblieal language with a boldness and luxuriance, 
certainly as yet untried, and perhaps hardly surpassed m later 
days : every image, every allegory, every parable, every figure 
has not one but a thousand meanings,-meanings, each of the 
same authority with its plainest and most literal significance- 
meanings heaped one upon another with prodigal profusion ; 
and that not in wanton ingenuity, but with a vehemence and 
fervour which enforce the belief that the preacher had the 
fullest confidence in every one of his wildest interpretations. 
There is still enough of the Peripatetic philosophy of his master, 
S. Thomas Aquinas, to show that it is not for want, but from 
disdain, of erudition, that he rests his teaching on the word of 
God, and on that alone. At the same time he retains the most 
humble deference for the doctrines of the Church on al theo- 
logical questions, and has full faith in the poetic mythology of 
the middle ages, in the Virgin, and in the Saints. 

From this time all Florence crowded to the preacher. The 
narrow church of St. Mark was too small. He was summoned 
to the cathedral ; and here men climbed the wal s and swarmed 
on the pillars, to catch a glimpse of his keen, delicate features, 
and the tone of his deep and thrilling voice. 

And Florence had need of a preacher of Christian righteous- 
ness There is no reason to suppose that Florence was, m 
Shakspeare's phrase, a more 'high-viced' city than others m 
Italy. But her commerce, perhaps, made her sensuality more 
splendid and notorious ; and the cultivation of letters and arts, 
and the Platonic philosophy, if it had made the manners more 
elegant, had probably not heightened the moral tone. 

The form of religion, it is true, subsisted-the hierarchy m 
all its splendour, and with its awful titles ; the ceremonial of 
the Church, in its utmost gorgeousness ; the doctrine, which as 
yet few were so religious as to dispute, in all its rigour-but 
its life, its sanctifying graces, its elevating aspirations were gone 
Its serious power, even its poetry (to speak generally^ had lost 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



19 



its hold on the inner soul of man ; and that soul must have 
something to fill its insatiable craving after higher things. 

The year after his settlement in Florence (in 1491) so great 
was his fame that Savonarola rose to the dignity of Prior of 
St. Mark. As the convent had been enriched by the bounty, 
and had prided itself hitherto on the reverence shown towards 
it by the house of Medici, it was the custom for the Prior on 
his appointment to pay a kind of homage to the head of the 
family. Savonarola seemed to be ignorant, or simulated 
ignorance, of this usage. The older friars remonstrated. 4 Is 
it (rod or Lorenzo de' Medici who has named me prior ? ' 4 God,' 
was the instant answer. 4 Let me, then, render thanks to G-od, 
not to man.' Lorenzo heard the report of this speech : he 
merely observed, 4 A monk, a stranger in Florence, has taken 
up his abode in my house, and will not deign to visit me.' To 
Lorenzo, no doubt, Savonarola was no more than a man of 
surpassing eloquence, whom his civilities would gradually tame 
down. Lorenzo would have delighted to have added Savonarola 
to the brilliant society which assembled around him in Careg- 
gi, to share his splendid hospitality and discuss arts, letters, 
philosophy, and religion, with Politian and Mirandola. He 
would have listened, as a high intellectual gratification, to the 
unrivalled preacher. But Savonarola felt that the friendship of 
Lorenzo was more dangerous to his lofty purpose than his 
enmity. He would not even tamper with the perilous cour- 
tesies of a man who at least dallied with heathenism, whose 
delight was in heathen poets, whose own poetry was bright 
with heathen images, and melodious with the names of 
heathen gods and goddesses, and in whose presence were dis- 
cussed such solemn questions as the immortality of the soul, 
with arguments extraneous to those of the Scriptures and of 
the Church. Throughout we must remember that Savonarola 
was, as will hereafter appear, a monk, in all the rigour and 
intolerance of monkhood. To Savonarola these evenings at 
Careggi— so beautifully described, and in a kindred spirit, by 
Mr. Hallam, who of all persons might fairly assume that 

c 2 



20 



SAVONAROLA. £Essay I 



classical culture is not incompatible with Christian goodness- 
were but profane revels ; hence his uncourteous and almost 
unchristian rejection of the advances of the princely host. 
Lorenzo, punctual in all the ceremonies of religion, came to 
mass at St. Mark's. It was told to Fra Girolamo, that after the 
mass he was walking in the garden. < Let him walk as long as 
he will,' was the cold answer. Lorenzo (the Magnificent) placed 
a number of pieces of gold in his contribution to the alms-chest 
of St. Mark. The Prior knew from whence came the splendid 
oblation. He set aside the baser metal as sufficient for the 
simple wants of the convent, and sent the gold to the buon- 
uomini, to be distributed among the poor. 

Savonarola relates himself a further instance of his own 
haughty demeanour to the lord of Florence. Five persons from 
the noblest houses in Florence, a Bonsi, a Vespucci, a Soderini, 
a Valori, a Eucellai, appeared before him to persuade him, for 
the sake of the public peace, to moderate his tone ; his dark- 
ening prophecies were already disturbing the city. < You tell 
me,' said the preacher, 'that you are come of your own accord. 
I say you are not. Go, and make this answer to Lorenzo de' 
Medici,— Let him repent of his sins.' His friends told him 
that he was in danger of imprisonment. < You, who have wives 
and children, may dread imprisonment. I care not ; let him 
do as he will ; but let him know that I am a stranger here, and 
he a citizen and the first of the city. But I shall stay where I 
am ; it is he that shall depart.' This, of course, afterwards 
grew into a distinct prediction of Lorenzo's death. Other and 
milder means were tried to keep down the growing influence 
of the Dominican. There was a famous Franciscan preacher, 
Fra Mariano. He was set up to calm the popular mind. He 
preached on the text, ' It is not for you to know the times or 
the seasons which the Father has put in his own power ' 
(Acts i. 7). Savonarola accepted the defiance ; he preached 
on the same text. Mariano was awed to silence; the rival 
preachers met in courteous intercourse ; but Mariano, at a later 
period, found his hour of vengeance : he preached in Rome, 



Essay L] SAVONAROLA. 21 

inciting the Pope to rid the world of that pestilent fellow. 
Brother Girolamo continued his triumphant course. In Lent, 
1492, he preached on the Book of Genesis at San Lorenzo. 
Women, when he rebuked their immodest attire, appeared in 
dark close dresses. One man, as he left the church, hastened 
to make restitution of three thousand ducats. The year had 
not passed when Savonarola stood by the deathbed of Lorenzo 
de' Medici. He had been summoned, it should seem, by the 
dyino- man himself, who had always shown the most humble 
obedience to the rites of the Church, and had already received 
the last sacraments, uttering words of the most profound piety. 
Politian, who was present, relates the interview. Girolamo 
exhorted the expiring prince to hold fast the faith; Lorenzo 
declared that his faith was unshaken. That he should amend 
his life; Lorenzo promised so to do in the strongest terms. 
That he should resign himself to death, if such were the will 
of God; 'with joy,' said Lorenzo, 'if such be God's decree.' 
The Friar rose to depart ; Lorenzo implored his blessing, bowed 
his head, and made the responses in the firmest and gentlest 
tone. Politian adds, that men would have thought that all 
present were suffering death, and not Lorenzo. We have no 
scruple in accepting this simple statement of Politian as the 
whole truth. It was an after-thought of Savonarola's admrrers 
and of Lorenzo's enemies which represents Lorenzo as racked 
with remorse by three sins of his life, the massacre at Volterra 
(which was no deed of his, but one of those dreadful accidents 
of war for which not even the commander of the forces at 
Volterra was responsible); the plunder of the Monti di Pieta 
founded for the dowry of Florentine damsels who had been 
deprived of their marriage-portions; and the condemnation to 
death of many innocent persons after the Pazzi conspiracy-an 
act of which popular fury, and not Lorenzo, was guilty. The 
Friar, it is said, sternly enjoined faith and restitution of all 
his ill-gotten gains. Lorenzo hesitated, but made the promise. 
The third and last demand of the inexorable Girolamo was, 'If 
you would have peace with God, restore her liberty to Florence.' 



22 



SAVONAROLA. 



[Essay I, 



Lorenzo turned his face to the wall, and spake no word ; the 
Friar withdrew. All this, however, rests only on the report of 
Burlamacchi, in whose work legend has always to be separated 
from history ; and to Burlamacchi it came from Marum, the 
somnambulist and man of visions, the least trustworthy of all 
Savonarola's followers. 

So died the magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici, at the age of forty- 
four, on April 8, 1492. On July 25 died Pope Innocent VIII. 
Piero de' Medici succeeded, without struggle, to the acknow- 
ledged but undefined supremacy of his father in Florence ; on 
the throne of St, Peter the unblushing and venal conclave 
placed the Cardinal Borgia, who took the name of Alexander VI. 
Savonarola acquiesced with the rest of Florence in the sove- 
reignty of Piero ; but in the Advent of that year he preached 
on the Ark of Noah, a course, it should seem, suddenly broken 
off, and resumed in the Lent of 1494. The clean and unclean 
beasts in the ark were a fruitful subject for the bold imagina- 
tion of the Friar. In the Lent of 1493 he was in Bologna, but 
it should seem that at Bologna he had tamed his manner ; the 
prophet was at first thought but a simple man, fit to preach to 
women. The preacher's fire soon began to kindle both himself 
and others ; all ranks, all orders, the artisan, the peasant, the 
burgher, the prince, were at his feet. The haughty wife of J ohn 
Bentivoglio, Lord of Bologna, condescended to be present ; but 
she came, and, in spite of remonstrance, came repeatedly, with 
a pompous train and in the midst of the service, interrupting 
the devotion of the people, and the discourse of the teacher. 
In the spirit of old Chrysostom to the Byzantine empress — 
< Herodias dances, Herodias would have the head of J ohn ' — 
Savonarola addressed her as the devil, who came to disturb the 
word of God. Her brothers attempted on the spot to avenge the 
insult ; they could not make their way through the throng. 
Assassins were hired ; according to the legend, they were ad- 
mitted to his presence, but cowered before his look and words, 
and crept back to their employers. The Friar boldly gave out 



Ess4I L] SAVONAROLA. 23 

that he was about to return to Florence, he should sleep at 
Pianora ; ' it is not my fate to die at Bologna.' 

The Prior of St. Mark determined to commence in his own 
convent that reformation which with terrible denunciation he 
had demanded from the whole Church, the Pope, the clergy, 
the people. He urged upon his brethren the strictest austerity 
and conformity to their rules, of which he himself set the 
example. He resolved to remove the cloister from the din and 
licence of the city, and obtained a site at Carreggio, where he 
settled most of the brethren. So far was he from discouraging 
learning, that he left part of the convent in Florence to be an 
institution for the study of the Oriental languages. He had 
further views. Tuscany was but a district of the Lombard 
provinces of his order ; he aspired to make it independent, and 
obtained its severance from Pope Alexander ; himself was to be 
the first vicar-general. During this reform, though he ceased 
not to thunder against the vices of clergy and people, he was 
still on terms of peace with the Pope and with Piero de' Medici. 
M. Perrens quotes a passage which reads almost like humble 
adulation of the son of Lorenzo, and contrasts it with his hard 
and uneourteous demeanour to the father. 

But the time was coming when the sword, the sword of God, 
which Savonarola had so long proclaimed as about to sweep 
down the sons of guilty Italy, might be seen, as it were, m its 
portentous gleaming on the summit of the Alps. Charles VIII. 
of France had been summoned by the Duke of Milan. Savo- 
narola at times disclaimed, at times seemed darkly to intimate, 
that he had foreshown the descent of the French; but he at 
once designated Charles VIII. as the coming scourge, as the 
renovator of the Church. 

The judicial folly which seized Piero de' Medici might to a 
less devout man seem the smiting of the hand of God. Florence 
had been, in all former wars, the faithful ally of the French. 
Piero de' Medici had entered into close confederacy with the 
King of Naples, whose throne Charles VIII. claimed as his 
own" Piero de' Medici might have resolutely maintained or 



24 



SAVONAROLA. 



[Essay I. 



might have repudiated the Neapolitan alliance : like all weak 
men he chose the worst course — vacillation. He knew that 
he had not, like his father, a firm hold on the respect, or at 
least the awe of the Florentines, but was hated for his pride 
and profligacy. Almost the first act of Charles VIII., on his 
descent from the Alps, early in 1594, was to send an embassy to 
Florence. He reminded the Florentines that Charlemagne had 
been the second founder of their city ; he touched on the recent 
alliances with the kingdom of France, especially with his father 
Louis XI., and urged the stronger argument, the immense com- 
mercial advantages derived from France. The Florentines were 
almost the bankers of the realm. The answer of Piero de' Medici 
was ambiguous. Charles at once prepared to march on Florence. 
Such was the public discontent that the magistrates entreated 
Savonarola to allay the angry people. The preacher obeyed, 
but he did not scruple to remind them of his repeated but 4 
neglected text (a text, by the way, invented or imagined by 
himself) : ' Behold, the sword of the Lord is upon the land, 
instantly and rapidly.' 6 Piero de' Medici was seized with the 
utmost panic ; he thought of his father's daring embassage in 
his own person to the hostile court of Naples. What Lorenzo 
had done with bold wisdom, he would imitate with weak 
despair : he went as his own ambassador to the camp of Charles; 
but, instead of overawing, fell prostrate before the invader. 
He accepted at once the hard terms ; he was even more lavish 
of concession than the king of demands ; he stipulated for the 
surrender of the fortresses of Pietra Santa, Sarzana, Sarzanella, 
the occupation of Pisa and Leghorn, the loan of 200,000 ducats. 

Florence rose in fury. Francesco Valori, once a friend of 
the Medici, headed the movement, mounted his horse, and sum- 
moned the people to liberty. Piero de' Medici and all his 
faction were declared rebels ; they stole out of the city, and took 
refuge in Bologna. Savonarola seemed stunned with the revo- 

6 Ecce gladius Domini super terram cito et velociter. His favourite phrase was 
that the barbiere (the barber or barbarian) would come and shave all Italy. See 
especially Sopra i Salmi, serm. xxiv. p. 166. 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



25 



lution — the Prophet saw not clearly what was to come. His 
sermon (on Haggai) dwelt only on the mercy of God ; he urged 
the people to imitate God, and show compassion. He spoke 
ambiguously of the scourge impending over the city : let 
Florence appease God, who is already half-appeased ; let the 
approaching Advent be a fast as rigorous as Lent. The burthen 
of his discourse, the burthen on which he perpetually dwelt, 
was calamity on Italy, on Florence, on the clergy. 

And he said again and again that Italy shall be utterly sub- 
verted, and specially the city of Eome. Nevertheless it was 
revealed to him, and had been revealed in former, visions he had 
seen at intervals for the last four years, that the prophecy against 
Florence was conditional : it might be averted by her repentance 
and by (rod's mercy. Four ambassadors were named of noble 
houses— a Nerli, a Eucellai, a Capponi, a Cavalcanti ; the fifth 
was the Dominican stranger, Girolamo Savonarola. They set 
out for Lucca ; Charles eluded their reception ; he was on his 
march to Pisa, whither they followed him ; but Piero de' Medici 
had pre-occupied the weak mind of the king by his humble sub- 
mission. On their solemn audience Savonarola addressed the 
king in a long florid Ciceronian harangue, in which there are 
but few gleams of the fervid preacher. It was a general exhor- 
tation to imitate God in showing mercy. 

On November 27 Charles VIII. entered Florence ; his manners 
were courteous, but the terms which he dictated hard and im- 
perious—the restoration of the Medici to their full sovereignty. 
The magistrates had not lost the Florentine courage: they 
firmly repelled the proposals. 6 What then,' said the impetuous 
Frenchman, ' if I sound my trumpets ? ' 6 Then,' resolutely 
answered Gino Capponi, ' Florence must toll her bells.' The 
threat of the terrible tocsin, the signal of general insurrection 
in all Italian cities, startled the king, and he turned off, with a 
coarse pleasantry on the name of Capponi. 7 Yet Florence, un- 

7 Nardi, i. 51. M. Perrens well observes that Macliiavelli has said better:— 
Lo strepito dell' armi e de' cavalli 
Non pote far ehe non fosse sentita 
La voce d' un Cappon fra cento Galli, 



26 



SAVONAROLA. 



[ESSAT I. 



organised, if not unarmed, might well fear the lawless Trans- 
alpine soldiery let loose in her streets. Savonarola was sent on 
a second embassage to the king. We see no reason to treat, 
with M. Perrens, his account of his own language as vain boast- 
ing : ' I spoke to the king as not one of you would have dared 
to have spoken, and, by the grace of God, he was appeased. I 
said things which you yourselves would not have endured, yet 
he heard them patiently.' Charles VIII. was not so superior 
to the awe of a man who spoke, like Savonarola, in the name 
of Grod, and whom many believed to be a prophet, as not to 
cower before h;s presence, or, at least, to reverence his saintly 
character. On November 26 the treaty was signed, and Charles 
left the city. 

Florence was now free, but with the Medici had fallen the 
government which had subsisted for seventy years. The old 
republican forms remained, but they had fallen into desuetude, 
and the habits of self-government had long been obsolete. All 
at first was factious confusion, trade ruined, shops closed, the 
people ground down by the enormous sums exacted by the 
French king as free gifts. There were great names — Soderinis, 
Capponis, and Valoris — but none of commanding authority. 
The stranger, the monk Savonarola, was the first man in 
Florence ; on him all eyes were turned ; he alone had over- 
awed the mighty king of France ; to him Florence owed that 
her streets had not run deep with blood. That he himself was 
the founder of the new republic, was no idle boast ; his sermons 
on Haggai, during the Advent of the present year, reveal the 
workings of his mind, and the course of his proceedings. 
Savonarola awaited his time ; his first proposal was that of a 
religious teacher rather than of a legislator — it was to make 
collections, one for the poor of the city, one for the poor of 
the territory ; to open the shops in order to give employment 
to the needy; to lighten the taxes, especially those which 
weighed on the lower orders ; to enforce strict justice ; and, 
finally, to pray fervently to God. If all eyes were previously 
turned on Savonarola in despair, they were now turned in 



Essay I.] SAVONAROLA. 27 

popular gratitude. By common consent Savonarola became 
the lawgiver of Florence. He summoned the whole people, 
except the women, to meet under the dome of the cathedral. 
He began by laying down four great rules or principles as the 
groundwork of the new constitution. I. Fear God. II. Prefer 
the good of the republic to your own. III. A general amnesty. 
IV. A council formed on the model of that of Venice without 
a doge. Nor was the constitution which he proceeded to 
develope the extemporaneous conception of a great mind, 
called forth by the exigencies of the time, nor that of a bold 
fanatic grasping at power, which in wielding he learned to 
wield. Savonarola had profoundly studied the principles of 
government. These questions had not been avoided in their 
vast theory of human life by the Schoolmen. S. Thomas had 
entered into them with all his cold, analytical, Aristotelian pre- 
cision and his exhaustive plenitude ; and Savonarola was master 
of the whole of S. Thomas. His book on Government is the 
practical application of that of the Schoolman. According to 
both, monarchy is nearest to the government of G-od — it is the 
best of governments ; but both the Schoolman and the Prophet 
had a noble aversion to tyranny, into which Italian monarchies 
seemed inevitably to degenerate. The death of S. Thomas is 
by some attributed to poison administered by Charles of 
Anjou, against whose dire despotism his book of government 
had been a stern protest. Savonarola, in more than one 
passage, draws the ideal of a tyrant in the blackest hues, 
manifestly with allusion to the hated Medici. 

The constitution of Florence, as founded by Fra Girolamo, 
was not a fierce democracy; it by no means recognised 
universal suffrage. The parliament of the whole people, sum- 
moned by the tocsin, had been the main instrument of the 
silent despotism of the Medici. This turbulent assemblage had 
of necessity devolved its full powers on a Balia, and on certain 
functionaries, the Accoppiatori, whose names, duly prepared by 
the Medicean faction, had been carried by acclamation, and 
thus assumed the sovereignty under the secret dictatorship of 



28 



SAVONAROLA. 



[Essay I. 



Cosmo, or his descendants. It was thus shown, on a small 
scale, how universal suffrage ends in despotism. The great 
Council of the nation, established by Savonarola, compre- 
hended the citizens with the right of suffrage; it consisted 
of all who had the right to take part in public affairs, that is, 
citizens of above thirty years of age (in some cases twenty- 
five), of blameless character (netti di specchio), who them- 
selves or their fathers, grandfathers, or great-grandfathers, had 
been either in the Signory, gonfaloniers of the companies, or 
of the twelve Buonomini. The population of Florence and 
its territory was reckoned by a curious statistical return, 
published by Eoscoe, at 450,000 ; the Great Council comprised 
but 3,200; of those one-third were chosen by lot for six 
months, and so in succession. No meeting had authority if of 
less than one thousand. The attributes of this kind of broad 
hereditary peerage were, to appoint to all the magistracies, to 
adopt or reject all laws. Afterwards it became a court of 
appeal from the sentences of death or exile passed by the 
Signory ; this was called the trial of the six beans (sei feve). 
The Signory was supreme, under the control of the Great 
Council. 

There was a second council of eighty (the richiesti) ; a senate 
which advised the Signory, drew up the laws to be submitted 
to the Great Council; decided on peace or war, conducted 
foreign and military affairs. Every member of the eighty 
must be full forty years old; all the magistrates formed 
part of it, and had a deliberative voice in its counsels. Such, 
in its outline, was the constitution of Savonarola, or rather 
of G-od ; for Savonarola enacted it in the name and authority 
of G-od : on its maintenance depended G-od's blessing and the 
promised unexampled prosperity of Florence. Nor was this 
all; it had a head, and this head was no less than Christ 
himself. Our own Fifth-monarchy-men were anticipated in this 
instalment of King Jesus as the paramount sovereign. The 
popular cry in defence of the constitution was, 'Live Jesus 
Christ ; ' again and again the preacher, in his panegyric on his 



Essay I]. 



SAVONAROLA. 



29 



own great work, declares it the especial care of the Saviour 
and of the Virgin. 

What was the office and position of Savonarola himself in 
the new constitution? It was one of greater influence and 
authority, because it was anomalous and undefined. The Lord 
of Florence was Jesus Christ, but the representative of the 
divine will, the prophet by whom it was permitted to reveal 
the future, was Savonarola. His office was something like 
that of a judge of Israel, or a Eoman censor with dictatorial 
power. Nor was it that the Signory or the Council had resort 
to the cell of the Friar, as to the seat of a living and perpetual 
oracle. He is found in the pulpit during the more than three 
years of his domination, with rare pause or intermission, and 
that not merely as the Christian preacher denouncing the sins 
of men, but as the guardian of the public weal. It is Florence 
which is the constant object of his terrible or cheering address. 
Against the attempt to restore the parliament, he thundered 
with more than his usual vehemence. 6 People, if you would 
not ruin yourselves, permit not the parliament to assemble — 
keep well this maxim, and teach it to your sons. People, 
when you hear the bell which summons you to parliament, 
rise up, draw your sword, and say to those who convoke it, 
What would you have? Has not the Council full power? 
What law do you propose? Will not the Council do it as 
well?' He luges them to make the Signory take a solemn 
oath not to assemble the parliament, to inflict heavy fines on 
all who should order the bells to sound for it. 4 1 would have, 
if the guilty man be of the Signory, his head struck off ; if 
he be not, let him be declared a rebel, and his goods con- 
fiscated.' This was strong language even for the tribune 
preacher. 8 

But in truth, according to Savonarola, it was the primary 
and essential postulate of the constitution of Florence, that 
Florence should be a Christian city ; a city such as had never 

8 Predic. sopra li Salmi, July 28, 1495. See Perrens, p. 214, for the rest of the 
quotation. 



30 



SAVONABOLA. [Essa* I 



been seen on the earth; the model to Rome, to Italy, to the 
world. It was to enjoy an age of peace and prosperity. There- 
fore it was that the preacher plunged headlong into politics. 
Whom were the Christian people to consult in all things but 
their Christian teacher, him who had the divine mission to 
preach, which not even the Pope could annul? Who was to 
guide the Lord's people but the prophet of the Lord? It is 
idle to judge, as we might now judge, of the incongruity of 
religious men mingling themselves in the turmoil and strife 
of the ringhiera, of making the pulpit a rostrum, instead of 
keeping the faith of Christ in holy and peaceful seclusion 
from the passions of men, and preserving the clear, definite 
distinction between the citizen and the Christian. For cen- 
turies the priesthood had been the rulers of the secular as 
well as the spiritual affairs of men. Bishops had been lords 
of cities, though latterly in Italy they had shrunk into a more 
peaceful sphere before the terrible tyrants, the condottieri 
captains, the hereditary podestas. Preachers, saints, even 
female saints (at Florence S. Catherine of Sienna), had 
mingled in matters of state. The Popes had been the dema- 
gogues of Christendom ; and if they had shown a tithe of the 
zeal for the liberties of mankind, which they did for what 
they called their own liberties, but which in fact was an iron 
spiritual tyranny, they had been demagogues to whom history 
might pay the highest honour. Yet was not Savonarola 
himself without some apprehension of this unnatural position 
of the Christian teacher ; but with his characteristic boldness 
he resolved it into the manifest will of God : — 

I have spoken to God in my own language. ' And what, Friar, 
hast thou said unto the Lord ? ' I have said, Lord, I confess that thou 
art just, good, almighty, and that thou art my God ; that thou hast 
created me out of nothing, and I am dust and ashes ; yet will I speak 
to thee with confidence, for thou hast been crucified for me. Pardon 
me if I am presumptuous and too familiar in my speech. Thou, Lord, 
who doest all things well, thou hast deceived me ; thou hast betrayed 
me, worse than man was ever betrayed. For though I have prayed 
long time that thou wouldst grant me such grace, that I might never 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



31 



be compelled to the government of others, thou hast made me just the 
reverse ; thou hast drawn me little by little to this port ere I was aware. 
My highest delight was peace — you have drawn me forth with your 
lure as a bird is drawn into the snare ; if I had seen the snare perhaps 
I had not been where I am. I have done as the moth, which desires 
the light when it sees the candle burning ; not knowing that it burns, 
it singes its wings. Thou hast shown me thy light, in which I rejoiced 
greatly, and having told me that it was well to make manifest that light 
for the salvation of men's souls, I have plunged into the fire, and 
burned the wings of contemplation. I have entered into a vast sea, and 
with great desire I long for the haven, and I see no way to return. 
Oh my sweet haven, shall I ever find thee more? Oh my heart, how 
hast thou suffered thyself to be taken away from so sweet a haven ! 
Oh my soul, look where thou art ; surely we are in the midst of a deep 
sea, and the winds are adverse on every side ! Lord, I say unto thee, as 
Jeremiah said — 1 Lord thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived ; 
thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed; I am in derision daily ; 
every one mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence 
and spoil, because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, 
and a derision daily.' 9 . . And again I will say with Jeremiah — 
1 Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me, a man of strife and 
a man of contention to the whole earth.' 1 I would go to the haven and 
I find not the way ; I sought rest, but found no place of rest ; I would 
be in peace and speak no more, but I cannot, for the word of the Lord 
is as a fire in my heart. His word, if I utter it not forth, burns my 
marrow and my bones. Well then, Lord, if thou wilt that I navigate 
this deep sea, thy will be done/ 2 

The pulpit was the throne of Savonarola : for nearly three 
years he held the sway over Florence with as rigid a despotism 
as the Medici of old. His sermons are, to the Florentine 
history of his brief period, what the orations of Demos- 
thenes are to that of Athens, of Cicero to that of Koine. 
Now it is that his eloquence swells to its full diapason. His 
triumphant career began with the Advent of 1494 on Haggai 
and the Psalms. But it is in the Careme of 1496, on Amos 
and Zechariah, that the preacher girds himself to his full 
strength, when he had attained his full authority, and could 
not but be conscious that there was a deep and dangerous 
rebellion brooding in the hearts of the hostile factions at 



9 Jer. xx. 7, 8. 



1 Jer xv. 10. 



2 On Amos, Predic. i. p. 9. 



82 



SAVONAROLA. 



[Essay I. 



Florence, and when already ominous murmurs began to be 
heard from Eome. He that would know the power, the 
daring, the oratory of Savonarola, must study this volume. 
Nor do the discourses on the Festivals of the same year, on 
Euth and Micah, fall much below this height. The Advent of 
1496, the Lent of 1497 on Ezekiel, and above all, the last 
series, during the Lent of 1498, on Exodus, are those of a 
haughty mind struggling bravely with his inevitable destiny ; 
they are gloomy and solemn with his approaching end. 

The sermons of Savonarola may be read even now with 
curious interest, and not seldom with admiration. What must 
they have been, poured forth without check, by the excited 
teacher to a most excitable audience, by a man fully possessed 
with the conviction that he was an inspired prophet, to those 
who implicitly believed his prophetic gift ! 

The manner in which an Italian— a Dominican — preaches, I cannot 
convey to you; so fervid, so forcible, so full of action and of passion; 
often as if he would pour out his very soul with his speech, and if not 
attended to would expire on the spot. But this is the kind of sermon 
with which Savonarola wrought upon the mind of the people at 
Florence. Day after day, an outpouring of mixed doctrine and emo- 
tion, of exhortation and prayer ; speech full of force, though not of 
grace ; surging up, as it were, from hot-springs in his heart, and flow- 
ing forth from his eyes, his hands, his features, as well as from his lips, 
rendering him unmindful of all but his subject, and his audience un- 
mindful of all but himself. 3 

We read after this with much less wonder Burlamacchi's 
bold assertion, that his more fervent hearers beheld angels 
hovering over him while he preached, the Virgin herself 
uttering with him his benedictions; palms of martyrdom 
upon his head; blood welling from his side. One noble 

3 We quote this from Lectures on Great Men, by the late Frederick Myers, 
the remarkable book of a remarkable man. of rare abilities and more rare virtues. 
The life forms one of a course of lectures, delivered as parochial instruction in the 
school of a small district in the north of England, part of Keswick. It is a popu- 
lar life from popular materials, with somewhat too much of Mr. Carlyle, but of his 
better part. The idol of Mr. Myers is not Force, but Goodness ; and it has .also 
this peculiarity, that it is written in sound and racy English. 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



33 



lady declared that he never preached without some of these 
celestial signs. 4 

His sermons address alike the fears, the hopes, the imagina- 
tion, the affections. Nor do they less appeal to the republican 
Florentine pride, for if the burthen of woe was ever denounced 
on Florence, to Florence were made all the ennobling promises 
of prosperity and peace. There was even the fierce factious 
spirit and invective against political enemies. In place of the 
old battle-cries of Gruelf and Grhibelline, White and Grey, 
Palleschi (Medicean), or popular, had grown up new names of 
religious partisanship, the Piagnoni, who with Savonarola 
mourned over the sins of the city ; the Tiepidi, the lukewarm, 
among the monks and clergy, whom he hated with the greatest 
cordiality ; the Arrabbiati, the infuriated at his doctrines ; the 
Compagnacci, the young libertines, who detested his austerities, 
and looked back to the free and gay times of Lorenzo and his 
sons. He is himself a Florentine, even in their animosities. 
For subject, for oppressed Pisa, the lover of Florentine liberty 
has no word of sympathy or of mercy. Pisa, on whom 
Charles VIII. in his rashness or his ignorance had bestowed its 
freedom, must be brought again under the detested yoke of 
Florence ; and that triumph Savonarola promises as the 
heaven-appointed reward of the fidelity of Florence to Cfod 
their Lawgiver and the Head of their republic. 

The chief characteristic of his eloquence was that it was 
still more and more biblical. Every image, every word, every 
event in the Old Testament, was not merely a remote sign, a 
figure, a type, but a direct, undeniable presignification of the 
state of things around him. It was all as plainly and inten- 
tionally spoken of Florence, of Italy, of Eome, as it had been 
of Israel and Judah. 5 It was the gift, the mission of Savo- 

4 Apud Baluzium (Mansi), p. 539. See, too, the chapters on his affability, 
humility, his singular and edifying amusements with the young friars. 

5 ' E. g. hanno scritto che questo Amos ha ribellato contro la Italia, et che egli 
ha fatto lega con questo e con quell' altro gran maestro, et che gli ha acquistato 
molte migliaia di ducati, e che egli ha fatto ricchi i suoi, e che egli e 1' huomo 
che guasta la Italia, e che dice mal del Papa, de' Cardinali, et de' episcopi e de' 

D 



34 SAVONAROLA. h 

narola, to interpret, with the authority of God himself, all 
this vast adumbration of things to eome, to unfold these 
phrases of terror, these pregnant, awful metaphors, whieh were 
not applieable by a moral affinity to present persons and 
events, hut, by the profound counsels of God, had been endowed 
with those endless inexhaustible meanings. From one who 
read off the visions of the older seers into their modern 
signification, the step was easy to the authority of a prophet. 
The more limited sense of 'prophesying,' usual in the New 
Testament, belonging to the commissioned preacher of the 
new revelation, was lost in the wider mission of the Hebrew 
seer. Nor was this a paroxysm to which he was now and then 
wrought up by the excess of zeal; a temporary hallucination, 
which gave way to more calm and sober views. It was his 
deliberate, repeated, printed assertion. No one can know 
Savonarola who has not read and studied the 'Compendium 
Eevelationum,' in which he offered to the world, as it were, 
the credentials of his prophetic mission. 6 

This book was published in the midst of his career; it 
opened with the distinct avowal of his power of predicting 
future events by divine inspiration. This gift he had exercised 
rarely on account of the hardness of men's hearts. He will 
not scatter pearls before swine. His prophetic gift is from 
God alone, for God alone beholds future and contingent Things. 
He indignantly rejects all arts of divination, especially astro- 
logy, against which he wrote a treatise. God reveals futurity 
to his chosen servants, either by supernatural light infused 
into the soul, by which man becomes in a certain sense par- 
ticipant in the eternity of God: he sees intuitively, and with 
certainty, that particular things are true, and that they are of 
God, as the philosopher perceives that two and two make four. 
The second more specific, and more ordinary mode of divine 

Prelati . . e che dice questo Amos (he himself is Ames), ehe Hieroboam a 
morire in gladio ? - &e. &e.-P«^. -n, p 23L ^ ^ 

« The Latin may be read at the end ol tne .une vy ± 
always prefer the Italian of the friar to his Latin. 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



35 



revelation, is threefold. 1. By flashing things directly upon 
the mind ; 2ndly, by visions ; 3rdly, by the intermediation of 
an gels. In all these ways he, Savonarola, had known future 
events. He relates his first predictions, when interpreting the 
Apocalypse, in 1489. In 1490, his misgivings were solemnly 
rebuked ; in consequence of which he made a terrible sermon 
(una spaventosa predica). He seems utterly unconscious of 
the vagueness of his own predictions ; he was preaching on the 
Ark of Noah, on the words 6 the waters shall cover the earth.' 
This, by his awestruck hearers, and by himself, was supposed 
to foreshow the descent of Charles VIII. on Italy, though 
uttered when Charles had already passed the Alps. But 
Savonarola was too absolutely convinced of his divine inspi- 
ration, to suspect that these things were within the range of 
mere human conjecture. 

The extraordinary part of the treatise is the argumentative. 
In a visionary dialogue with the Tempter (under the form of 
a holy hermit), he suggests every possible rationalistic objection 
to his own supernatural gift, and, to his own satisfaction, 
disdainfully refutes them all. He has simulated nothing, as 
some supposed, with the holy purpose of deceiving mankind 
to their good. ' If I ever used simulation in my preaching, 
may Grod deprive me of Paradise ! ' Nor did his visions pro- 
ceed from a spirit of melancholy, or a disordered imagina- 
tion. £ This,' he replies, fi was belied by his profound know- 
ledge of philosophy, and of the Scriptures, inconsistent with 
a bewildered phantasy.' It could not be from astrology or 
divination, which he denies, and abhors as condemned by Holy 
Writ. ' It is no deception of the Devil : the Devil knows not 
future effects; the Devil would not wish the good wrought 
by his preaching. How can the Devil know the times and 
seasons ? ' The Tempter appeals to the prophets of old ! 4 Why 
should Grod have chosen him (Fra Grirolamo) as his prophet, 
when there were so many better th an he in the Church ?' 6 Why 
did G-od elect Peter, Paul, Luke, and Mark rather than others 
as Apostles and Evangelists? Even sinners have been gifted 

D 2 



36 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. 

with prophecy, as Balaam.' The Tempter goes on: 'he 
received it all from foolish dreaming women.' He rarely 
conversed with women. Though there have been prophetesses 
named in Holy Writ, women are ignorant, fickle, vain, liable 
to be misled by the Evil One. ' Some say that you are in the 
secret of the councils of princes.' It would be folly to rest the 
truth of prophecies on such changeable and insecure founda- 
tions ; so especially, he asserts, of the rulers of Florence. ' He 
had learned these things by astuteness and political wisdom ; 
he had learned them from the old prophecies of Joachim and 
S. Bridget. He ought to suppress such perilous truths in 
silence.' ' Did Moses, Isaiah, or the saints of old, or S. Bene- 
dict, S. Victor, or S. Catherine of Sienna suppress their oracles?' 
'He ought to prove his divine mission by miracles.' 'Did 
Jeremiah, did John the Baptist work miracles?' 'He was 
an heretic ;' he believed, he replied, the whole doctrine of the 
Eoman Church. 'Many great men, many of the wisest, 
laughed his prophecies to scorn.' 'The wise of the world 
always scorn the words of heaven.' ' The believers are few in 
comparison with the unbelievers.' ' Many are called, but few 
chosen. Few heard Christ and his apostles. The many 
persecuted them.' ' He had prophesied many things not true.' 
This he denies ; all that he had prophesied had turned out 
true to an iota ; but he drew subtle distinctions. ' Sometimes 
he spoke as a man ! The Holy Spirit did not always dwell in 
the prophet ! ' The Tempter then argues with him at length 
upon the unreasonableness of his mingling in politics, and 
examines his whole conduct both as political leader and as 
Prior of St. Mark. Savonarola justifies himself at still greater 
length and in every particular. 'He ought to preach like 
other preachers, on virtues and vices.' Savonarola trium- 
phantly appeals to the fruits of his preaching. 

In our summary whole pages have shrunk into sentences. 
The rest of this remarkable work is occupied by a Vision as 
purely poetic as those of Dante, in which the Virgin takes her 
place, as it were, as the Divine protectress, the tutelar Saint 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAKOLA. 37 



of Florence. This will show how entirely southern and Italian 
was the mind of Savonarola ; how little kindred it was with 
those of whom he has been considerd the harbinger, the Ger- 
man and English Reformers. We may add that, though in 
prose, it approaches nearer to that less read part of Dante, the 
f Paradiso,' than anything in Italian literature since the ' Divina 
Commedia.' 

If the imagery of the Old Testament predominates in the 
preaching of Fra GHirolamo, so does the tone : the terrible judg- 
ment of God was its burthen ; its promises, bright as they 
were, were seen only in remote distance, on the faint horizon, 
behind long and heavy-looming banks of clouds, which must 
first burst and overwhelm. The denunciations were against all 
orders, especially the clergy and the monks. 

You who write to Kome (of Rome more hereafter), and say that I 
have spoken evil of this man and that, write this— that I say the cause 
of this visitation is the evil life of the prelates and of the clergy ; and 
the bad example of the heads of the clergy is that which brings down 
this visitation. . . . I tell you to repent, and if you do not repent I 
announce to you two most terrible chastisements (flagelh). One in this 
world which you cannot escape; that is the tribulations which are at 
hand, for the Lord God cometh in haste and instantly. I tell you that it 
is coming. The other chastisement shall be that they shall go down into 
hell. Did they but know what I know, for this chastisement will reach 
a vast multitude in Italy and beyond Italy, but I will confine myself to 
Italy in which I say that very few will be saved. ... The Lord 
says, by the mouth of Malachi the prophet, that the priest ought to 
know the law, for he is an angel of God, and now ye know nothing of 
the Scripture : you do not even know grammar ; and this would be 
tolerable, if you were of good life, and did set good example. For this 
cause says the Lord God, I have given you up to the scorn of the people 
for your wicked doings. Ye keep concubines, ye do worse, and ye are 
notorious gamblers; ye lead lives more flagitious than the seculars; 
and it is an awful shame that the people should be better than the clergy. 
I speak not of the good but of the bad. Give up your mules, give up 
your hounds and your slaves; waste not the things of Christ, the gams 
of your benefices, on hounds and mules. And the same have I to say to 
the bishops. If you do not yield up your superfluous benefices which 
you hold, I tell you, and I proclaim to you (and this is the word of 
the Lord), you will lose your lives, your benefices, and all your wealth, 



38 



SAVONAROLA. 



[Essay I. 



and ye shall go to the mansion of the devil ; every way ye must lose 
them — and this ye shall know by experience. And now to the religions 
— the monks and friars. 7 — These fare no better — Predica, p. 499. 

This is the perpetual tone ; the burthen is their simony, con- 
cubinage, nameless vices ; the country clergy had everywhere 
their concubines ; as to the cardinals, we must revert to a 
passage in one of the older sermons to illustrate the frightful 
state of morals. 8 He is insisting on the universal curse upon 
the earth — quia maledicta terra in operibus eorum — on the 
universal misery of mankind. Kings are not exempt from this 
misery. There are ever those who would kill and betray them, 
they are ever in straitness and sadness of mind. 

You will say, perhaps, ecclesiastical persons, cardinals, and prelates, 
who have great possessions and revenues, enjoy profound peace, for they 
have not to think of wives and children. They go out hunting and 
riding every day, and suffer not the least trouble ; they are served by 
all, held in reverence and gratitude by all. It seems indeed that they 
have perfect peace. But I tell you, 1 maledicta terra in operibus eorum ' 
• — for the higher the rank the greater the danger : they have no peace, 
for they are always in fear lest they should be killed or poisoned. 
Look, when they eat how many buffets must there be — quante credenze 
bisogna fare ; [here is the origin of the credence table or closet in pri- 
vate and in the church], lest the common food, lest the spiritual food 
of the holy Eucharist should be poisoned. If they travel to any place 
they must take everything with them. This seems to me a miserable 
life, a life full of death. I had rather eat bread and onions, like pea- 
sants who labour all the day, and eat that bread and those onions with a 
good appetite, than eat as you do snipes, partridges, and pheasants. — 
Sopra il Salmo, c. viii. p. 313. 

The vices which Savonarola denounces as the shame and 
disgrace of Florence are luxury, usury, and covetousness, 
splendid and immodest apparel, sensuality in its most degrad- 
ing and repulsive form, incest, promiscuous intercourse, and 
gambling. Fully to illustrate this we must have quoted page 
after page. 

7 See a curious passage on Zechariah, ; Predica,' xxxiv., in which he treats on 
St. Augustine, St. Basil, St. Dominic, St. Francis, bastinadoing their degenerate 
disciples. — Amos, Prcdiche, p. 352. 

8 See in his earlier volume, p. 293, his invectives against adulterated medicine^ 
false weights, tricks of attorneys, &c. 



Essay I.] SAVONAEOLA. 39 

In a terrible sermon (on Psalm xxvi.) he is not content with 
his own maledictions, awful as they were ; hut he calls on 
the magistrates to execute punishments more stern than those 
in the Mosaic law. For one nameless crime, he will have 
no secret fine or penalty, he would light a fire to hum the 
guilty, whose lurid glare should affright all Italy. Thus he goes 



on 



Shall a thousand, ten thousand perish for one wretch ? those poems 
are the cause of God's wrath. Fathers, keep your sons from poems 
(poesie) Bring out all the harlots into the public place with the 
sound of trumpets. Fathers, there are enough to throw any city into 
confusion. Well then begin with one, then another. Punish gaming, 
prohibit it in the streets. If you find only one man staking fifty ducats, 
tell him the State has need of a thousand. Pay up on the spot. 
Pierce the tongues of blasphemers! St. Louis of France ordered a 
blasphemer's Hps to be cauterised, and said, < I should be happy if they 
would do the same by me, if I could clear my realm of blasphemers 
Put down balls, it is not time for dancing, put them down m town and 
country. Have your eyes everywhere, punish all offenders. Have all 
taverns shut up at six o'clock. This has been ordered again and again. 
Shut your eyes awhile, and then catch them in the fact, and exact the 
penalty. Let all shops be shut, even apothecaries, on festival days It 
your tooth aches have it drawn on a festival, there is no harm m that; 
but stand not buying boxes and toys. Let debtors leave their houses 
to go to church on week days without fear of arrest. 

His audience was not only all Florence and the country 
around, but people came from the neighbouring cities, Pisa and 
Leghorn. The seats in the cathedral were built up in an 
amphitheatre to accommodate the crowds ; and even the piazza 
was full. 

The wonderful change which his preaching wrought is the 
boast of his admirers, the sullen but implicit admission of his 
enemies. Half the year was devoted to abstinence. It was 
scandalous to purchase meat on a day assigned as a fast by 
Savonarola. The tax on butchers was lowered. On the days 
when the Prior of St. Mark preached, the streets were almost a 
desert; houses, schools, and shops closed. No obscene songs 
were heard in the streets, but low or loud chants of lauds, 



40 



SAVONAROLA. 



[Essay I. 



psalms, or spiritual songs. Vast sums were paid in restitution 
v of old debts, or wrongful gains. The dress of men became 
more sober, that of women modest and quiet. To ladies of 
great rank Savonarola would allow some jewels and ornaments ; 
in others they were proscribed or cast off. Many women 
quitted their husbands to enter convents. Savonarola enforced 
severe continence even on married people. Weddings were 
solemn^ and awful ceremonies ; sometimes newly-wedded 
couples made vows of continence, either for a time or for ever. 
It was a wiser counsel of Savonarola that mothers should nurse 
their own offspring. Nor were the converts only amongst the 
lowly and uneducated. Men of the highest fame in erudition, 
in arts, in letters, became amongst the most devoted of his 
disciples ; names which in their own day were glorious, and 
some of which have descended to our own. 9 At his death 
there were young men among the brethren of St. Mark from 
all the noble families of Florence — Medici, Eucellai, Salviati, 
Albizzi, Strozzi. 1 

But Savonarola might seem at last to despair of the present 
generation, inured to their luxuries and sins, in which they 
were either stone dead, or constantly relapsing into death ; he 
would train a new generation to his own lofty and austere con- 
ceptions of holiness, virtue, and patriotism. He issued to the 
youth of the city a flattering invitation to attend his sermons ; 
on their young imagination, and souls yet unenslaved to habits 
of indulgence, he would lay the spell of his eloquence. They 
crowded in such numbers that he was obliged to limit the age 
to between ten and twenty. He proceeded to organize this sacred 
militia. The laws to which they subjected themselves by en- 
rolment (and the enrolment swept within its ranks almost all 
the youth of the city) were, 1, the observation of the command- 
ments of (rod and of the Church ; 2, constant attendance at the 
sacraments of penance and the Eucharist ; 3, the renunciation 

9 Burlamacchi observes with wonder, not without triumph, that even some 
Franciscans were among his converts. 
1 Marchese, 185, Note. 



Essay I.] J8AV0NAK0LA. 41 

of all public spectacles and worldly pleasures ; 4, the greatest 
simplicity of manners, conduct, and dress. The young republic 
had its special magistrates, peace-officers (pacieri) who kept 
order and silence in the church and in the streets, and regu- 
lated processions ; correctors (correttori) who inflicted paternal 
punishment on delinquents ; almoners (limosinieri) who made 
collections for religious objects ; lustratori, who watched over 
the cleanliness and propriety of the crosses and other objects of 
worship ; and finally young inquisitors. 

The young inquisitors were to fulfil the office of the older 
negligent magistrates. They were to inquire after and denounce 
blasphemers and gamblers, to seize their cards, dice, and money ; 
to admonish women and girls too gaily dressed. It was touch- 
ing to hear them, says Burlamacchi, utter such simple and 
sweet sounds as these, ' In the name of Jesus Christ, the king 
of our city, and of the Virgin Mary— We command you to 
cast off these vanities ; if you do not, you will be stricken with 
disease.' They forced themselves into houses and seized on 
cards, chess-boards, harps, lutes, perfumes, mirrors, masks, 
books of poems, and other instruments of perdition. Savona- 
rola not only urged the reversal of the law of nature, not 
only did he vindicate this boyish police set over the state, but 
inveighed with more than usual vehemence against the older 
citizens. 

The tyranny exercised by these boy magistrates over their 
parents was not the only abuse ; his enemies aver that there 
was discord and delation in every house ; wives wrote to 
Savonarola to accuse their husbands as plotting against his 
authority. Two cases of this kind are named in the hostile 
Process, as notorious throughout the city. The object of 
Savonarola's most devout aversion was the Carnival, celebrated 
as it was at Florence, with gaiety which degenerated into wild 
licence, with poetry which had taken a Pagan turn. Youths 
on chariots drove through the city representing ancient 
triumphs ; masques paraded and danced and sung their carnival 
songs from Lorenzo's poetry. Perhaps, indeed, his 6 Cant i 



42 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. 

Carnialeschi' are the most spirited and graceful of his works, 
but they sang of Bacchus and Ariadne, and of Cupid and Venus. 
The Carnival must be put down, or at least cast off its heathen 
character. If still riotous it must be religious riot. The 
firmer the ascendancy of Savonarola, the more the monk broke 
out. He was not content with Florence as a Christian republic, 
he would have it one wide cloister. The holy revolt of the 
children against parental authority caused sullen murmur. He 
acknowledged the reproach, which was, if not loudly, secretly 
urged against his proceedings. 6 Dice Firenze e fatta Frate, il 
popolo e diventato Frate ; non vogliono piu d' esser sbeffati per 
queste quaresime e orationi.' He adds, that in the perfect state 
of Florence, matrimony shall be all but unknown. 

But even if Florence had submitted to his austere yoke, 
would Eome bear the neighbourhood of a city which was not 
only a standing reproach, but a bitter invective against her and 
against her rulers ? 

The old religion of Eome and the new religion of Florence 
could not but come into terrible collision. The Christian re- 
ligion of Florence would not endure as it were on her borders 
the simoniacal, the worse than heathen, Christianity of Eome : 
Eome would not endure the rebellious pretensions of Florence 
to holiness, which she had repudiated so utterly and so long. 
Savonarola and Alexander VI. could not rule together the mind 
of Christendom : it must be an internecine war between Savo- 
narola the Prophet, with the austerity of the most famous 
founders of the monastic orders, and Alexander VI., against 
whom all contemporary history, without a protest, lifts up its 
unrebuked voice. Never yet had the Eoman Church such 
desperate difficulty to separate the man Borgia from the Pope 
Alexander VI. ; to palliate, to elude, to perplex by theological 
subtlety, the incongruity which glared upon the common sense, 
and sent a deep shudder through the moral feelings of mankind. 
Men must believe that Grod could appoint as his Vicar upon 
earth, as Vicar of his sinless, gentle, peaceful Son, a man loaded 
with every crime, with simony, rapacity, sensuality, perhaps with 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAEOLA. 



43 



incest ; that infallibility as to faith might dwell together with 
vices which in their blackest form disdained disguise ; that in 
direct opposition to the Saviour's words, which had indissolubly 
linked together the acquaintance with his tenets with the 
practice of his precepts, the same person could have the most 
profound knowledge of the doctrines of the Grospel with the 
most utter contempt of its virtues. It was impossible that 
Savonarola should preach his severe cloistral Christianity in 
Florence and be respectfully silent on the anti-Christian 
iniquities of Eome ; or vaticinate the renovation of the Church 
by the terrible chastisements of Grod, and leave unrebuked the 
capital and centre of all offence. Throughout his sermons it is 
Eome, against which he thunders his most bitter invectives, and 
calls down and predicts, with the profoundest conviction, the 
imminent wrath of Grod. He always, says Burlamacchi, called 
Eome Babylon. 2 

Alexander VI. could neither close his ears against the stunning 
maledictions of the prophet, nor fail to perceive its fearful 
consequences ; yet, at first, his unrivalled secular sagacity might 
seem at fault. Alexander had permitted himself to be surprised 
into a consent to render the convent of St. Mark independent 
of the Dominican province of Lombardy. The report of one of 
the most terrible sermons of Savonarola had been taken down by 
a hostile scribe and transmitted in darkened colours to Eome. 
The preacher had attacked the clergy with the bitterest taunts ; 
he traced the whole evil up to that shameless pontifical court, 
where all the crimes that pride, cupidity, and luxury can com- 
mit are done in open day. To this he attributed the past, 
present, future miseries of Italy and of the world, and summoned 
the Court to answer for it before man as before Grod. Yet in 
all this the Pope saw only the somewhat wild zeal of a devout 
friar. He desired a bishop of the Dominican order to reprove 
Savonarola. The bishop frankly replied, that it would be hard 
to show that simony, concubinage, and incest were not vices 



P. 551. 



4 4 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. 

and crimes. < There is a better way to silence such troublesome 
men ; give him good preferment.' Another Dominican, Louis de 
Ferrara,was sent to Florence; he disputed with great vigour 
against Fra Girolamo, but made no impression on his stubborn 
virtue. He tried other means— the offer of the archbishopric of 
Florence, the prospect of a cardinal's hat. The indignation of 
Savonarola was at its height: he summoned the tempter to hear 
his next sermon ; he mounted the pulpit and renewed in aggra- 
vated terms his fierce denunciations— I will have no hat but 
that of the martyr, red with my own blood. 3 

But the Pope had now to guard against more immediate 
enemies : Charles VIII. was in Eome. Alexander took refuge 
in the castle of St. Angelo ; only three or four, some assert but 
two, cardinals followed him ; the rest encircled the King of 
France. Even before the French king's descent from the Alps 
there had been dark rumours, that among his objects in Italy 
was to depose the wicked Pope. The Cardinals urged him to 
take this bold step. They urged the assembling of that 
tribunal— since Pisa and Constance, awful to Papal ears— a 
General Council. 

It was not till Naples, Rome, and Italy were relieved from 
the presence of the French king that the Pope had leisure to 
fear and hate Savonarola. But already, in July 1495, a Papal 
brief, obtained from the Pope by the enemies of Savonarola, 
through the Duke of Milan, Ludovico the Moor, had arrived at 
Florence ; it was sheathed in bland words ; it invited him, or 
rather courteously commanded him, to go to Rome. Savonarola 
alleged excuses of his health, and of danger of assassination on 
the road. He was preparing his great work which was to 
vindicate his prophetic powers, the 'Compendium Revela- 
tionum.' In September came another brief, more peremptory 
and less laudatory ; then a third, threatening Florence with 

3 This sermon is not extant. M. Perrens quotes an allusion to this : « Io non 
voglio cappeUi, non mitre grandi ne. picciole : non voglio se non quello che tu hai 
dato alii tuoi Santi ; la morte, uno cappello rosso, uno cappello di sangue. 
(p. 93.) 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAKOLA. 



45 



interdict. Savonarola obeyed not, bnt he suspended for a time 
his sermons. Still, however, he preached in the neighbourhood, 
in many cities of Tuscany, with his wonted power and success. 

Charles VIII. had passed away, 4 but the Pope's more redoubt- 
able adversary was again m his stronghold — his pulpit — hurling 
defiance at his unforgiving foe, and entering into that strife in 
which success was hardly conceivable, and in which defeat was 
martyrdom. In the Lent of 1496 he preached the famous 
Careme upon the prophet Amos. That he was at deadly war 
with the Pope he disguises not from himself or from his hearers ; 
and it is curious and most instructive to see the strong man 
struggling in the inextricable fetters of the Eoman system, 
endeavouring to reconcile his own obstinate rebellion with the 
specious theory of universal obedience to the successor of St. 
Peter. Hence the perpetual contradiction, the clashing and 
confusion of his arguments. At times he would take refuge in 
the more plausible argument that the ears of the Pope had 
been abused by his enemies, — the Arrabbiati and the Tiepidi. 
The Pope had been deceived ; he appealed from the Pope 
deluded by false representations to the Pope better informed 
as to facts. At times he will not believe that such an order 
has arrived : — 

They are too wise to believe the falsehoods which are promulgated 
of me. If the Pope were to allow himself to be persuaded by these 
Pharisees, and should command me to preach no more, as this order 
would be contrary to the cultivation of the Lord's vineyard (this every 
old woman in Florence knows), I would not obey him : I would appeal 
from his words to his intentions. I cannot believe that the Pope has 
sent such an order. Absit ! absit ! that he should prohibit the culture 
of the Lord's vineyard. If a Prelate should give me an order to violate 
our constitution (the Dominican), and not cultivate the vineyard, I 

4 Savonarola had an interview with the king at Poggibonzi. of which he gives 
an account in a sermon, the XX. ' Sopra i Salmi,' preached June 22, 1496. He 
says, 'Io sono stato la in campo, e come essere nello inferno.' (p. 148.) At this 
time took place the interview which Philip de Commines had with Era Girolamo, 
described in his Memoires, 1. viii. c. 2. Commines believed fully in the holiness 
of Savonarola ; he was inclined to believe his prophecies. To Commines he pre- 
'dicted the safe return of Charles to France, after most signal calamities, supposed 
to be verified in the death of his son. 



46 



SAVONAROLA. " [Essay I. 



must not obey ; so says St. Thomas. If he commanded me to eat flesh 
when in health, or, like a Cardinal, belie my religion, I would not, 
must not, do so ; so write St. Bernard and other doctors. 

At times he triumphantly reverts to his own unimpeachable 
orthodoxy, as he might in justice on all the great articles of 
the faith and on all the tenets of the Eoman Church; but he 
forgot that Eome had long exercised the power of enlarging the 
limits of orthodoxy; that absolute instantaneous obedience to 
the See of Eome was now an unquestioned doctrine of the 
Church. At times we seem to hear not only Gerson or Zabarella 
asserting the power in the Church to depose a wicked pontiff, 
but Wycliffe or John Huss asseverating that a wicked Pope is 
no Pope. It was a strange argument, with which he bewildered 
himself in order to bewilder his hearers. 

Who has inhibited my preaching? You say, the Pope. I answer 
you it is false. < Oh friar, the Briefs are here, what say you ? ' I say 
that the Briefs are not of the Pope. . . . They say the Pope 
cannot err, and they think that a fine saying, and in itself it is true. 
But another saying is true— that a Christian, as far as he is a Christian, 
cannot sin. Yet may Christians sin because they are men, and may 
err As far as I am a Christian I cannot err ; as far as I am a friar 
I cannot go beyond my rule. . . . Thus the Pope, as far as he 
is Pope, cannot err; when he errs he is not Pope. If he commands 
that which is wrong, he does not command it as Pope. As a Christian 
I cannot err ; when I err I do not err as a Christian. ... It 
follows, then, that this Brief, which is such a wicked Brief, is not the 
Pope's Brief. I have shown you that such excommunication (the ex- 
communication had now been issued) does not come from the Pope. 

Summing up all this ; whoever will judge rightly, will judge 
that such an excommunication is no excommunication; such briefs are 
of no validity, they are of the devil, not of God. ... I say, and 
you know it, that I am manifestly sent, and I am of the order of 
preachers, and I am sent by God to tell you this distinctly ; and I must 
preach, and even if I have to contend against the whole world, and I 
shall conquer in the end. 

Brave and resolute words, but how to be reconciled with Papal 
Supremacy, or even with ecclesiastical discipline ? Savonarola 
asserts a mission above the mission of the Pope. In another 
passage he instances those five Bulls of Pope Boniface VIII., 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAKOLA. 



47 



4 who was so wicked a Pope.' Nor, in the meantime, does 
he soften or mitigate his eloquence ; it is now at its height ; 
is even more terribly vituperative ; his fulminations against 
Eome are still more relentless. Neither did the Fraticelli, 
the lower Franciscans, nor the northern Lollards, brand more 
broadly the evils which the assumption of temporal power had 
brought upon the Church. There is a long awful passage on 
the rod of Moses swallowing up the rod of Aaron. 6 If you 
would live well go not to Rome — I had rather go to the Turks.' 
But it is impossible to judge Savonarola without one passage, 
a passage which we cannot quote entire, and which has been 
withdrawn from most of the copies of the Sermons on Amos. 5 
It is in the wildest and most characteristic manner of the 
preacher : — 

O vaccse pingues quae estis in Monte Samarias. O vacche grasse che 
siete nei monti di Samaria, che vuol ella dire questa Scrittura ? Tu mi 
risponderai e dirai queste prophetie e le Scritture Sacre sono finite in 
Cristo e non vanno piu la, e furono verificate a tempi loro. Io ti 
rispondo che non ci bisogneria adunche piu il vecchio Testamento a 
noi, e si espose pure dalli santi dottori al tempo delli eretici le Scritture, 
secundo quelli tempi d' allora per li eretici ; e tamen fu dopo Cristo, 
va demandane li dottori. A me adunche questa Scrittura e queste 
vacche grasse voglion dire le meretrici della Italia e di Eoma (io non 
dico di le donne da bene, io dico di chi e). Eccene nessuna in Italia 
et in Eoma ? Mille son poche a Eoma ; dieci milia sono poche, dodici 
milia sono poche, quatordici milia sono poche a Eoma. Udite adunche 
queste parole, o vacche di Samaria, udite ne lo orecchio. La vaccha e 
un animale insulso e grasso, e proprio come uno pezzo di carne colli 
occhi. Donne, fate che le vostre fanciulle non sono vacche ; fate 
che le vadino coperte il petto. . . . Queste che sono come io 
v' ho detto un pezzo di carne con due occhi ; non si vergogniano di 
niente ; puo essere che voi non vi vergogniate che voi non solamente 
siate concubine, ma concubine di preti e di frati. 

We must break off; this is modesty, decency, mild rebuke 
to what follows. We have afterwards Herodias dancing and 
demanding the head of John the Baptist : — 

5 Out of six copies in the libraries of Florence consulted by M. Perrens, it is 
only in one. It is in that which we have used belonging to Sion College Library. 
It is quoted entire in M. Perrens' Appendix. 



48 



SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. 



Quote dicano al toro taglia le gambe al quelle, ammazza quest alto 
che non mi lasciano vivere al mio modo : quant! eredi tu, che ne 
perisca 1' anno in questa forma, o concubine, o vacche. 

We might here almost suppose an allusion or a prophecy to 
the murders committed on each other by the Borgias. Then 
comes the sentence, 

Juravit Dominns Deus in sancto sue, Iddio ha giurato nel suo . 
figliuolo e nel corpo suo, che verranno i dl amari sopra di te, Roma, e 
sopra di voi vacche, verranno dico i giorni aman.-i» 8 , Pred. m 
p. 129. 

Another passage might seem aimed directly at Alexander 
VI if his effrontery had not already been anticipated by his 
predecessors, Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. 'They disdain 
the more decorous vice of nepotism; they publicly call their 
bastards by the name of sons.' (p. 143.) 

Savonarola would not trust to his eloquence alone ; the 
phrenzy of the people must he kept up with counter means of 
excitement. His enemies were by this time become strong 
and furious; there were rumours that they intended to poison 
him. At one period the magistrates (his partisans) gave him 
a hodyguard to protect his life. It was at the close of this 
Lent, on Palm Sunday, that he organized the famous procession 
which was to put to shame the unholy merriment of the old 
Carnival, to show the way in which the austere season of Lent 
was hereafter to commence and to close. He would oppose 
the Cross to the sword of justice. In the church of the 
Annunziata assembled not less than 8,000 children, each of 
whom as he passed St. Mark received a red cross. Mature 
men clad in white like children, went chanting and dancing 
before the Tabernacle on the Public Place. They all sang 
mystic lauds composed for the occasion, of incredible extrava- 
gance, and to our feelings of incredible profaneness. 'V 1V a 
Christo, viva Firenze,' was the burthen. They were a kind of 
Christian Bacchanalian song, with infinitely greater wildness, 
and without the grace of Lorenzo de' Medici's Carnival Odes: 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



49 



Non fu mai piu. bel solazzo, 

Piu giocondo ne maggiore, 
Che per zelo e per amore 

Di Gesu divenir pazzo. 
Ognun grida com' io grido 

Semper pazzo, pazzo, pazzo. 

They paused for a time before the church of Santa Maria 
dei Fiori. On an altar in Santa Maria dei Fiori were vases 
for offerings, full of gold, rings, and trinkets ; chests for larger 
objects, robes of silk, and every kind of gorgeous dress and 
decoration. All these oblations were for the Monti di Pieta, 
institutions which Florence owed, at least in their flourishing 
state, to Savonarola. The Tabernacle bore a painting repre- 
senting the Lord as he entered Jerusalem on an ass, with the 
people shouting Hosanna and strewing their garments in his 
way ; on the other side was the Virgin with a gorgeous crown. 
They returned to St. Mark's, and there, in the open square, 
the Dominicans, crowned with garlands, went whirling round 
in mad dances, chanting all the while their Christian Bac- 
chanals. 

What shall we say if we hear Savonarola, in the sermon of 
the following Monday in the Holy Week, vindicating all this 
sacred revelry, and with examples which we hardly dare to 
cite ? 6 What shall I say of the festival of yesterday — that for 
once I drove you all mad ; is it true ? It was Christ, and not I. 
. . . . What will ye say if I make you hereafter madder 
still, yet not I, but Christ ?' He returns to the subject later in 
the sermon. He adduces of course the example of David dan- 
cing before the Ark, 'yet David was a king and a prophet ;' of 
Elijah running and dancing before the king when the rain came 
down, 6 and he was a prophet.' ' Ye mock at these things for 
ye have not read the Scriptures. Tell me, did not our Saviour 
himself go mad in this way ? ' and he refers to the Grospel of 
St. Mark iii. 21 ; he adduces the rejoicing and crying by the 
Apostles on the descent of the Holy Grhost, when it was said 
they were drunk with new wine ; St. Paul, to whom Agrippa 

E 



50 



SAVONAROLA. 



[Essay I. 



said, < Thou art mad;' lastly, St. Francis, in whom he might 
certainly have found better authority for his mystical ecstasy — 
6 This is the effect of divine love.' 4 What would ye say if I 
should make you all, old men and old women, dance every one 
around the crucifix ; and I, the maddest of all, in the midst of 
all?' — Predica 41, sopra Amos. 6 

The Pope, on the intelligence of these doings, during the 
Lent of 1496, appointed a commission of fourteen theologians, 
all Dominicans. Only the result of their deliberations is 
known ; all but one condemned Savonarola as 6 guilty of 
heresy, schism, and disobedience to the Holy See.' Yet some 
unknown cause, perhaps the powerful influence of some of the 
cardinals, for he had cardinals among his admirers, more likely 
some more urgent occupation, delayed the tardy anathema. 
On November 7 arrived a brief uniting St. Mark to a new 
Tuscan province of his order ; Savonarola ceased to be vicar- 
general. 

The more eventful year 1497 opened with the accession of a 
signory in which the Piagnoni, his serious followers, obtained 
the ascendancy : at the head stood his noble partisan Francesco 
Valori. But they seem to have committed a fatal political 
error. The Grand Council, deducting the aged, sick, and infirm, 
was now reduced to 2,200. To fill it up they extended the age 
of admission to twenty-four years : but among the citizens of 
that age a great majority were of the Compagnacci, the gay 
youth of the Medicean faction. These were older than the 
children, who were all under his sway, younger than the more 
sober citizens, who had groaned under the yoke of the Medici. 
Savonarola would distinguish this carnival with still further 
solemn abnegation of its profane rejoicings. Florence should 
make a costly sacrifice of her vanities and worldly treasures. 
Days before, his young police were sent around on their rigid 
inquest to compel the people to surrender all their treasures of 

8 Religious dancing seems to be a favourite notion with Savonarola. He says 
to his faithful disciples, « Se tu morrai, ti troverai a ballare con li angeli.'— On 
Amos, Bred, xxxiv. p. 352. 



Essay I.] SAVONAKOLA. 51 

ornament, arts, and letters, which might offend the most fas- 
tidious monkish delicacy. A vast pyre was erected in the 
Piazza. At the bottom were masks, false beards, masquerading 
dresses, all the wild attire of satyrs, harlequins, and devils, 
worn of old in the riotous days ; above them books of Italian 
and Latin poetry, the Morgante, the works of Boccaccio and 
even Petrarch ; then came whole female toilets, perfumes, 
mirrors, veils, false hair; then instruments of music, lyres, 
flutes, guitars, cards, chess-tables, draft-boards ; the two upper 
layers were pictures, portraits of the most famous beauties of 
Florence, the works of the greatest masters. Whatever paint- 
ing betrayed one gleam of human nakedness was heaped up 
for the sacrifice. Among the famous artists who threw with 
unaverted faces all their academical studies on the pyre were 
Baccio della Porta, known afterwards as one of the holiest and 
most perfect of painters, Fra Bartolomeo, and Lorenzo di Credi. 
Such was the value of the holocaust, that a Venetian merchant 
offered to purchase it at 20,000 crowns. The austere Signory 
revenged this outrage on morality by ordering a picture of the 
merchant to be painted and thrown into the fire. How little 
discrimination would be shown in a moral inquest thus held 
by fanatic boys and an ascetic monk may easily be surmised. 
As to letters, Savonarola in his sermons constantly devotes all 
the poets, ancient and modern, and even Plato, who himself 
condemned poets, to hell fire. Among the artists, not only 
Fra Bartolomeo, Lorenzo di Credi, but others, such as that 
wonderful inventor of a new art, Luca della Eobbia, were 
among his most ardent disciples, and were faithful to the end 
to their holy teacher. No doubt the pure and lofty religious 
emotions excited by the Friar in their congenial minds com- 
bined with their exquisite genius in sanctifying the paintings 
of these great masters almost to the utmost height of sanctity. 
No doubt much good was wrought by a protest against that 
naturalism, into which high art was inclined to degenerate, 
which scrupled not to embody the features of the beauties of 
the day, who were not always of the purest life, in Magdalenes, 

E 2 



52 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. 

saints, and the Holy Virgin herself. Yet we cannot but think 
the eloquent panegyric of M. Rio, in his < Art chretien,' much 
overdrawn. Both he and M. Cartier, in the ' Annales archeo- 
logiques' for 1847, frame a perfect theory of the Beautiful, an 
sesthetic system, with much fervent ingenuity and some truth, 
from the writings of Savonarola. We have not space to enter 
into these interesting questions, but we think that we could 
show that not a little of this was but the commonplace philosophy 
of the day, in which Savonarola was fully read ; and that there 
must be a more faithful balance of his denunciations against 
the homage which he pays, or rather the indulgence which he 
sometimes shows, to letters and to arts. If painting had 
never left the cloister, to which Savonarola would have driven 
it back, how many of its noblest works had been lost to man- 
kind. In truth, Savonarola was in some respects almost an 
iconoclast : against nothing is he more vehement than in his 
denunciation of the wealth wasted on magnificent buildings 
and on rich and stately ceremonials. 

The events of the year darkened as it advanced ; a doubt- 
ful signory was installed on March 1. The malignants (the 
Arrabbiati) and the faction of the Medici began to come to 
an understanding against the common object of their hatred. 
Piero de' Medici made an attempt on the city. Savonarola, 
who during the Lent was continuing his sermons on Ezekiel, 
was consulted as the oracle of Florence. < ye of little faith, 
Piero de' Medici shall approach the gates, but shall not enter 
the city.' Piero de' Medici, with a powerful troop, approached 
the gates, trusting to his faction within ; they remained sternly 
closed, and he retired in discomfiture. So writes the historian 
Nardi, and other documents confirm his statement. But with 
Savonarola's knowledge of the state of Florence, he needed no 
prophet's inspiration. On May 1 a signory, avowedly hostile 
to the friar, assumed the government. He was to preach on 
Ascension Day, May 4. On the eve, some wretches, with the 
connivance of certain priests, stole into the church, heaped the 
pulpit with filth, spread an ass's skin as a pulpit-cushion, and 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



53 



ran nails with their points upwards into the board, that in his 
energy he might strike his hands against them. By some 
accounts it was a dead ass placed on the preacher's seat. But 
his disciples were on the watch ; the pulpit was cleansed ; and 
his enemies had the disappointment of beholding him ascend 
with perfect calmness. His sermon was unusually quiet and 
dignified, with less of the ordinary invective. The high-born 
rabble tried other means of annoyance. The Signory, pretend- 
ing solicitude for the public peace, entreated the Friar to abstain 
for a time from preaching. 

On May 12 the Pope at length determined to hurl the 
terrible bull of excommunication against the rebellious Friar. 
It had long impended. At Eome his old antagonist, Fra 
Mariano di Grhinezzano, had preached against him, urging the 
Pope to vengeance. In his sermons in March Savonarola had 
prepared his hearers for the blow. The Papal bull is lost, but 
it contained three charges — I. The refusal to obey the summons 
to Eome ; II. Perverse and heretical doctrines ; III. The 
refusal to unite St. Mark to the Tuscan and Eoman provinces. 
On May 22 Savonarola addressed a short letter to the Pope. 
He protested solemnly against the charge of heresy ; he 
appealed to his hearers, to his printed sermons, to his great 
work about to appear, ' The Triumph of the Cross.' On Fra 
Mariano he took a revenge neither high-minded nor Christian. 
He accused him of having spoken ill of the Pope, whom Fra 
Grirolamo had defended against his insolent invective. 4 Ee- 
procher son ingratitude a un Pape sans entrailles, c'etait une 
premiere maladresse.' So justly observes M. Perrens. Some 
other parts of his letter rest on poor equivocations. A short 
time after came an apology, then two more letters, and a cloud 
of apologetic writings from his partisans, labouring with in- 
effective subtlety to reconcile that which was irreconcilable, 
flagrant disobedience to the Papal supremacy with the theory 
of the most profound and entire obedience. 

In June the plague broke out in Florence. Some letters 
written by Savonarola at the time to his relatives show that the 



54 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. 

tenderness of his domestic affections was not chilled by fanati- 
cism, by power, or by peril. M. Perrens hints that he betrayed 
want of Christian courage in avoiding exposure during these 
sad times. He was not by the bedside of the sick, he was not 
burying the dead, he sent away most of the young friars (a 
proper precaution), he shut himself up with the rest in their 
cells ; his disciples might come to consult him, but he went 
not forth into the pestilence-stricken streets. So writes M. 
Perrens ; we think not quite fairly, for nothing can surpass his 
calm faith in Grod : he had been urged to withdraw, and was 
offered many pleasant places of retirement, but he would not 
abandon his flock. He stayed to console the afflicted, the se- 
cular as well as the brethren, and describes the joy of those who 
regarded with equal delight life or death : they sleep, they do 
not die. 7 For a time the strife of the Arrabbiati and Piagnoni 
was suspended by the common danger. A terrible event, how- 
ever, occurred at Eome — the murder of the Duke of (xandia, 
the son of the Pope— of which there is an appalling incident 
related in the despatches of one of the Venetian ambassadors — 
6 The wild wail of the bereaved old man in the Castle of S. Angelo 
was heard in the streets around.' Savonarola addressed a letter 
to the Pope. This letter is disappointing, and for that very 
reason we are inclined to believe its authenticity. It is neither 
the awful denunciation of the prophet, nor the gentle suasion of 
an evangelic teacher. There is one brief hint that it may be. 
the beginning of the accomplishment of the Friar's dark pre- 
dictions : the rest is cold, courteous sympathy, and nothing 
more. At this time, when the Pope's mind was unhinged, and, 
it might be hoped, the remorseless passion of hatred in some 
degree allayed, 8 strong efforts were made by a favourable 
Signory, by many of the highest influence in Florence and in 

♦ Lettera a Maestro Alberto, p. 131. 

8 ' Yet,' writes Captain Napier, ' the Pope's mistress too, Giulia Farnese, who 
was called La Giulia Bella, and conspicuously, nay, even ostentatiously, exhibited 
at all the great religious festivals, had increased the public scandal by producing 
another son to occupy the place of him whose blood had so lately reddened the 
hand of the fratricide.'— History of Florence, iii. p. 603. 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



55 



Eome, to induce the Pope to withdraw the dread sentence of 
excommunication. M. Perrens is of opinion that, but for the 
fatal course of events, Savonarola might have been re-admitted 
into the pale of the church. The faction of the Medici had 
not been crushed by the repulse of Piero de' Medici from the 
gates of the city. A wide-spread conspiracy was discovered to 
overthrow the existing state of things — the heaven-appointed 
republic of Savonarola. We cannot enter into the dark and 
intricate details of this plot ; the manner in which the awe- 
struck tribunals shifted the responsibility of condemnation 
one from the other. At length the terrible blow was struck ; 
the appeal to the Great Council, Savonarola's own law, was 
refused, and the five guilty men of high rank had their heads 
struck off at midnight. Was Savonarola the adviser ? Was 
he assentient to this remorseless .sentence ? At all events 
his voice was not lifted up for mercy, and his most faithful 
partisan, Francesco Valori, was the man whose commanding 
language and threatening action had overruled the wavering 
judges. A modern historian of great impartiality adds : ' The 
Frateschi gained a considerable increase of power by their 
success, and medals were struck with Savonarola's image on 
one side, and on the other that of Eome (the centre of the 
conspiracy was supposed to be Eome), over which a hand and 
dagger were suspended, and the legend, " Gladius Domini 
supra terram cito et velociter." ' 9 This was the well-known 
burthen of all the prophet's preaching. 

Alexander threw off once and for ever all his unpapal soft- 
ness, all his temporising lenity. On October 16 was issued a 
brief, addressed to the prior and the brotherhood of St. Mark. 
It arraigned £ a certain Girolamo Savonarola ;' condemned the 
novelty of his doctrines, his presumption in declaring himself 
a man sent of God, and speaking in his name, a claim which 

9 Napier's Florentine History, vol. iii. p. 601 ; a work which had made more 
impression, if the author, with his wide acquaintance with the Italian historians, 
had not acquired their fatal prolixity. 'On this event he writes on the authority 
of some valuable unpublished Memoirs of Francesco Cei. 



56 



SAVONAEOLA. 



[Essay I. 



ought to be confirmed by miracle ; bis audacity in declaring 
that if be lied, Jesus Cbrist lied in him, and that all who 
believed not his doctrines were damned. 6 The Pope had 
hoped by his equanimity to induce Savonarola to acknow- 
ledge his errors ; he now peremptorily interdicted him from 
preaching in St, Mark and elsewhere.' There were other in- 
structions for the execution of this sentence. At the same 
time came a letter to Savonarola himself, in blander terms, 
the manifest object of which was to tempt him to go to Kome. 
Savonarola replied in a long letter, full, as usual, of his subtle 
distinctions and ingenious or artful excuses. In truth he had 
but one alternative, as a good Catholic, to submit humbly and 
at once, or, like Luther, to burn the bull. He abstained 
indeed from preaching in the churches ; but under the modest 
and specious name of conferences, and in more familiar lan- 
guage, he continued at St. Mark's to keep up his disciples to 
their fever heat, On Christmas Day the excommunicated 
Savonarola publicly administered the mass, and led a solemn 
procession through the cloisters. 

On January 1, in the fatal year 1498, was chosen a Signory, 
mainly of the partisans of Savonarola. They pressed him again 
to preach in public. The magistracy attended a splendid 
divine service at St. Mark's on the Epiphany, and received the 
eucharist from the excommunicated Friar. On Septuagesima 
Sunday he mounted the pulpit of the cathedral Santa Maria 
dei Fiori : he commenced his last and not least striking course 
of sermons on Exodus. Though his disciple, almost his rival in 
popularity, Domenico Buonvicini, preached at St. Lorenzo, the 
concourse was so great, that they were obliged to replace the 
seats which had been erected to accommodate his countless 
hearers. The Arrabbiati beat drums around the cathedral ; 
there were regular battles with stones or worse. In these 
sermons he sought not to avoid the perilous question, his re- 
sistance to the Pope. It was the old argument in the same 
form, or in even bolder forms : — 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAKOLA. 



57 



I lay down this axiom, there is no man that may not deceive him- 
self. The Pope himself may err. You are mad if you say the Pope 
cannot err ! How many wicked Popes have there been who have erred : 
if they have not erred, should we do as they have done we should be 
saved. You say that the Pope may err as man, but not as Pope. But 
I say the Pope may err in his processes and in his sentences. How 
many constitutions have Popes issued, annulled by other Popes ; how 
many opinions of Popes are contrary to those of other Popes. He 
may err by false persuasions ; he may err by malice, and against his 
conscience. We ought indeed in this case to leave the judgment to God, 
and charitably to suppose that he has been deceived. Can a Pope do 
everything ? Can he order a married man to leave his wife and marry 
another ? 

He said the briefs of Alexander were so full of contradic- 
tions, that they must have been drawn by beads with but little 
sense. He spoke of excommunications, as launched with such 
recklessness that they had lost all authority. The first sermon 
closes magnificently. He bad before protested, that if he 
sought absolution, for that absolution he would that God might 

cast him down into hell : — 
• 

I should think myself guilty of mortal sin if I should seek absolution. 
Our doctrine has enforced good living, and so much fervour, and such 
perpetual prayer, yet are we the excommunicated, they the blessed. 
Yet their doctrine leads to all evil doings — to waste in eating and 
drinking, to avarice, to concubinage, to the sale of benefices, and to 
many lies, and to all wickedness. Christ ! on which side wilt thou be ? 
— on that of truth or of lies ? of the excommunicated or of the blessed ? 

The answer of Christ may be expected The Lord will be with 

the excommunicated, the Devil with the blessed. 

He exhorts them all, even women and children, to be pre- 
pared to die for Christ. 

At the Carnival there were processions more gorgeous, and 
more lavish in their fantastic religious symbolism, their images, 
their banners, than ever before. There was a second auto-da- 
fe, it should seem, of precious things which had escaped hitherto 
the inquisitorial zeal of the boy-censors. Burlamacchi names 
marble busts of exquisite workmanship, some ancient (it is 
said by others, representing Lucretia, Faustina, Cleopatra) ; 
some of the well-known beauties of the day — the lovely 



58 SAVONAROLA, [Essay I. 

Bencina, Lena Morella, the handsome Bina, Maria de Lenzi. 
There was a Petrarch, inlaid with gold, adorned with illumina- 
tions valued at fifty crowns ; Boccaccios of such beauty and 
rarity as would drive modern bibliographists out of their 
surviving senses. The Signory looked on from a balcony; 
guards were stationed to prevent unholy thefts ; as the fire 
soared there was a burst of chants, lauds, and the Te Deum, 
to the sound of trumpets and the clanging of bells. Then 
another procession; and in the Piazza di San Marco dances 
of wilder extravagance, friar, and clergyman, and layman of 
every age whirling round in fantastic reel, to the passionate 
and profanely-sounding hymns of J erome Beniviene. 

Home was furious ; the two first sermons upon Exodus had 
been laid before the Pope ; 1 new briefs arrived threatening the 
most extreme measures ; Florence was menaced with interdict ; 
the ambassador with difficulty obtained a short delay. There 
were sinister rumours that the new Signory would be hostile 
to the Piagnoni. Yet on the day of their election to their 
office, Savonarola outdid himself. 'There are briefs arrived 
from Rome, is it not so ? They call me the son of perdition. 
He whom you so call has neither catamites nor concubines, he 
preaches the faith of Christ ; his spiritual daughters and sons, 
those who listen to his doctrines, pass not their time in per- 
petrating such wickednesses ; they confess, communicate, live 
godly lives. This Friar would build up the Church of Christ 
which you destroy. Leave me to answer the letters from 
Rome : time will open the casket ; one turn of the key and 
such infection, such filth, shall arise from the city of Rome, 
that it will spread throughout Christendom, and corrupt the 
whole atmosphere.' But Savonarola thought it prudent now 
to withdraw into St. Mark's ; there he still preached to the 

* Lettera di Bonsi, Marcnese, p. 167. Not only had the Pope heard that the 
Friar declared that he would go to hell before he would ask absolution, but < that 
he had reproached the Pope about the death of his son ' This was no calumny 
of his enemies, the allusion was patent (see Marchese, Note). See also the 22nd 
Sermon, more furious than ever against Rome : ' Vanno hora in S. Pietro le mere- 
trici, ogni prete ha la sua concubina.' He warns the Frati solemnly not to go to 
Borne : 4 Yuoi tu viver bone, non andare a Roma, non star con prelati,' &c— p. 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAKOLA. 



59 



men during the week, to the women who would not be ex- 
cluded, on Saturday. The Signory endeavoured to propitiate 
the Pope ; they represented the wonderful effects of the preach- 
ing of Savonarola, and entreated his Holiness to mitigate his 
strong measures. The remarkable answer of Pope Alexander is 
published for the first time by M. Perrens, who writes, 6 It is 
very hard in form, in substance very conciliatory.' Of its rigid 
impenetrable hardness there can be no doubt ; but all that is 
conciliatory, the faint hope held out that, after her humilia- 
tion, Florence was again to be permitted to hear her beloved 
preacher, sounds to us no more than diplomatic delusion 
addressed to a signory in which the Pope has many voices, and 
hoped to induce them either to take the strong step of silen- 
cing, or still better of sending, the Friar to Pome- 

At this juncture Savonarola threw away the scabbard, and 
boldly and resolutely appealed to Christendom, against the 
wicked Pope. He wrote letters to all the great sovereigns of 
Europe, to the Emperor, the King of France, the King and 
Queen of Spain, the King of England, the King of Hungary : 
he called upon them with the deepest solemnity to call a 
Council to depose a Pope who was no Pope, The words of his 
denunciation vary ; their significance is the same. 2 Alexander 
was no Pope, because he had notoriously bought the pontifical 
mitre by sacrilegious simony ; because he was guilty of mon- 
strous vices at which the world would shudder, and which 
Savonarola was prepared to prove at fit time and place ; 
because he was no Christian, but an absolute atheist. The 
language of Savonarola had long bordered 3 on, or rather been 

2 M. Perrens has printed the original Latin of two of these letters, which were 
before known only in Italian. Of their authenticity there can be no doubt; the 
fact of Savonarola's appeal is attested by all the best historians, Nardi and others. 
It is alluded to more than once in the trial. 

3 1 Scitote enim hunc Alexandrum VI. minime pontificem esse, qui non potest 
non modo ob simoniacam sacrilegamque pontificatus usurpationem et manifesta 
ejus scelera ; sed propter secreta facinora a nobis loco et tempore proferenda quae 
universus mirabitur et ob(ex)secrabitur orbis.' — Ad Reg. Hisp. ' Affirmo ipse non 
esse Christianum qui nullum prorsus putans Deum esse, omne infidelitatis et 
impietatis oilmen excessit.'— Ad Lnperat. p. 486. 



60 SAVONAROLA. C EssAY L 

the same with that of Wycliffe and John Huss, that a wicked 
priest, bishop, or pope was no priest, bishop, or pope. The 
Council of Constance and the deposal of John XXIII. were still 
fresh in the memory of the world. Of these fatal letters one 
was intercepted by the Duke of Milan and transmitted to Eome. 

No wonder that on March 13 arrived at Florence a new and 
more furious bull imperatively commanding the Signory to 
proceed to the execution of the former decrees. The same 
day Savonarola replied in a letter of calm yet defiant expos- 
tulation, asserting his power of prophesying the future, re- 
monstrating at the too easy audience given by the Pope to 
the enemies of himself and of God; and in a brief concluding 
sentence, exhorting the Pope not to delay, but to look well 
after his own salvation. The Signory were in alarm : the 
Council was divided : the Piagnoni and the Arrabbiati con- 
tested every point. Was the question of the guilt or innocence 
of the Friar to be debated in the Great Council, the Council of 
80, or by chosen delegates ? A commission of 12 was appointed. 
They entreated Savonarola, for the sake of the peace of 
Florence, to cease from preaching. For once Savonarola lis- 
tened to the voice of prudence, but with sullen reserve. < He 
would cease at least for a time : he would cease till the Lord, 
as no doubt he would, should compel him to preach again.' 
He took a tender farewell of his hearers : he closed with a 
kind of awful blessing : he thought not, as he descended from 
the pulpit, that he would never ascend it again. The Signory 
communicated the result of their deliberations to the Pope; 4 
and the Pope seemed to acquiesce in the silence of his re- 
doubted adversary. 

It was the foliy of Savonarola's disciples, and not his own 
magnanimity or rashness, which precipitated his fate. The 
Franciscans throughout the career of Savonarola had been his 
most implacable adversaries, and their own conscious inferiority 
as preachers was not likely to soothe their jealous hatred. It 

4 Letter of the Signory to the Pope, Marchese, Doc. xxiii. 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAKOLA. 



61 



was an ancient and perpetual feud ; the Dominicans of old had 
scoffed at the preaching and the wonders of the famous Fran- 
ciscan John of Vicenza. Either from some incautious words of 
Savonarola himself, that he would go through the fire to attest 
the truth of his prophetic gifts, or from some rash defiance of 
his followers, or from the no less blind fanaticism of incredulity 
in the Franciscans as to the inspiration of a Dominican friar, 
mutual provocations and challenges had passed, two years before, 
between the two Orders, thus to submit the momentous question 
to the judgment of Grod. This was no new ordeal : there was a 
famous instance of such a trial in the near neighbourhood of 
Florence, when the great debate on the celibacy of the clergy was 
actually submitted to the ordeal of fire, and the Monks of Val- 
lombrosa triumphed over the gentle and holy Archbishop of Flo- 
rence. 5 It is said that Savonarola proposed other miraculous 
tests, that the two parties should ascend some height, each with 
the Host in his hands, and implore the Almighty with fervent 
prayer to send down fire, as in the days of Elijah, to burn up his 
adversaries : that they should meet, and whichever should raise a 
dead body, should be held worthy of all belief. To this it is 
added that Pico of Mirandola had such faith in his adored 
Savonarola that he entreated that, for the benefit of letters as 
well as of the true faith, the dead man raised to life might be 
his famous uncle, Pico of Mirandola. The Franciscans, it might 
seem, shrunk from these tests ; but one of them, Fra Francesco 
di Puglia, who was preaching in the church of Santa Croce, 
was either maddened by his ill-success, or goaded by the Arrab- 
biati to accept the challenge of passing through the fire. The 
challenge was eagerly accepted by Buonvicino as the champion 
of St. Mark's and of Savonarola 

We cannot enter into the long dispute as to the acceptance, 
and the terms of this challenge to the ordeal of fire ; nor into 
the seeming vacillations, almost the tergiversations of Savo- 
narola, who manifestly saw its folly, though we doubt if he had 

5 See quotation in Perrens, p. 326. Milman's Latin Christianity, iii. p. 91, 



6 2 SAVONAROLA. [Essay 

much sense of its presumptuous impiety. The difficulty on 
both sides was, not who should, but who should not, share this 
glorious peril. The pride of either Order was at stake ; the 
long-cherished, sometimes mitigated, yet ever out-flaming 
jealousy of Franciscanism and Dominicanism was at its height. 
Savonarola himself declined the perilous appeal to heaven: 
the original challenger, Fra Francesco, would not deign to 
confront an humbler adversary. The championship devolved 
on Fra Dominico Buonvicini, and a Franciscan convert, 
Giuliano di Eondinelli. Buonvicini vowed to maintain, by 
the trial of fire, these propositions of his master:— 4 1. The 
Church of God must needs be reformed. 2. It shall be 
scourged (flagellate). 3. It will be reformed. 4. After these 
visitations, Florence, like the church, will revive to great 
prosperity. 5. The Infidels will be converted to Christianity. 
6. These things will take place in our days. 7. The Papal 
excommunication of Savonarola is null and void. 8. Those 
who do not respect it do not sin.' All was drawn up with 
strict legal form, and mutual covenants were signed and 
exchanged. Ten citizens were chosen to regulate the day, and 
to make the arrangements for the ordeal. 

On Saturday, the vigil of Palm Sunday, April 7, a pile was 
erected on the piazza of the Signory, forty yards long, with a 
narrow path in the centre, of every kind of combustibles, and 
charged, it is said, with gunpowder. Five hundred soldiers 
kept the circle. But, besides this, 500 Compagnacci guarded 
the Franciscans ; 300 Frateschi were enrolled to protect Savo- 
narola. The Signory took their places in a lofty balcony; 
the crowds around, above, at every window, on every roof, 
baffled calculation. A loggia, called that of Orcagna or of 
the Lanzi, was assigned to the two Orders ; in their compart- 
ment the Dominicans erected an altar. Before he set forth, 
Savonarola celebrated mass at St. Mark's to a great number of 
the faithful ; but in his short discourse he spoke not without 
some doubts : ' God had not revealed the issue of the ordeal, 
or whether it would take place. If he were asked, he sup- 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



63 



posed that it would.' It is conjectured that there were rumours 
of a brief from Eome prohibiting the ordeal. They marched 
in procession ; Savonarola, in his priestly robes, bore the Host. 
He placed it on the altar, at which Buonvicini knelt in 
humble devotion. There arose a deafening burst of chaunting 
from the Piagnoni ; the Franciscans maintained a solemn 
silence. The Signory gave the sign to advance to the trial. 
The spectators were in the agony of expectation. Then began 
a strange altercation : the Franciscans would not consent that 
their adversary should enter the fire in his sacerdotal dress. 
His robes might be enchanted : they were not content with • 
his changing his dress for a friar's garb : they would have him 
stripped naked, lest there should be some magic charm about 
him. The Franciscans stood watching every motion of Savo- 
narola, lest he should lay some spell on his champion. The 
crowd grew weary of this wrangling ; but it ended not there. 
The Franciscans protested against the small red crucifix, 
always borne by the followers of Savonarola. 'If not the 
cross,' exclaimed Savonarola, 'let him bear the Host.' The 
Franciscans raised a cry of horror at the sacrilegious proposal 
to expose the Redeemer's body to the fire. Savonarola stood 
firm : it had been revealed, Burlamacchi says, to Fra Silvestro 
Maruffi, that the champion must not enter the fire without 
the Host. On every side was fierce dispute, tumult, con- 
fusion. The Compagnacci strove to approach Savonarola, and 
put him to death. Salviati, amid his Piagnoni, drew a line 
with his hand, and threatened Dolfo Spina, the captain of the 
Compagnacci, to strike the man dead who should pass that 
line. Hours had passed, the day was wearing away ; suddenly 
came down torrents of rain; the Signory seized the oppor- 
tunity of declaring that Grod would not permit the ordeal to 
proceed. The Franciscans stole quietly away ; but Savonarola, 
as he came in greater pomp, must retire with more solemn 
dignity : he had to bear back the Host. 6 

6 We agree with M. Perrens in following Nardi, as the most probable account 
of the order of events. 



64 SAVONAEOLA. t EssAY L 

Conceive the fury of a vast populace, thus strung to the 
most intense excitement, baffled, fatigued, and, no slight 
aggravation, drenched with rain. There was one burst of 
imprecation, and all hurled at the fated head of Savonarola 
The Franciscans were obscure, unknown men : it was the final 
appeal to God in the cause of Savonarola,— of Savonarola, 
who for several years had been the centre of their thoughts, 
the object either of their fond idolatry, or of their no less 
intense hatred: the legislator, the prophet, on whose lips they 
had hung; who had swayed them in cowering terror, or m 
ardent admiration. And now he had himself fallen back like 
a coward from the post of honour: he had put forward his 
poor deluded follower, and even had shrunk from exposing 
him and so his whole cause, to the judgment of God. He 
had quibbled, shuffled, basely eluded the trial. What con- 
tempt could be sufficiently contemptuous? What terms of 
reproach -'poltroon, hypocrite, impostor, false prophet'— 
could be too scornful for one who had defrauded them of their 
promised spectacle ? Woe to him who excites the populace to 
the madness of high-wrought expectation, to be succeeded by 
the madness of disappointment ! With difficulty the slow and 
broken procession made its way to St. Mark's, amid the jeers, 
curses, and peltings of the people, though environed by the 
bodyguard which the Signory sent to protect them. The 
Host alone-some believed from its inherent awfulness, some 
from its miraculous power-saved the person of Savonarola 
from the utmost violence. For the last time the gates of the 
church closed on their devoted prior; the spell was broken; 
the wand of the magician had crumbled in his hands. Once 
more he mounted the pulpit; made a faithful exposition of 
the events of the day; gave good counsel to his scanty 
audience, and, after a hymn, dismissed them in peace 

The night passed away: in the morning some of the friends 
of Savonarola were for taking up arms, and anticipating the 
threatened danger: they were repressed by the prudence of 
Francesco Valori. The Priors met: it was agreed, that for 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAEOLA. 



65 



the public peace the Friar must leave Florence ; a sentence of 
banishment was passed : he had not the time, if he had had 
the will, to obey it. His place in the pulpit of the cathedral 
was to be rilled by Mariano degli Ughi. No sooner had the 
preacher appeared than there was a cry, £ To arms ! to arms ! ' 
The Compagnacci, in strong bands, thronged towards St. 
Mark's : the Signory passed a resolution to arrest the Prior. 
This seemed to authorize the movements of his enemies. The 
convent was begirt by hostile bands. On their first appearance 
two Piagnoni had been massacred ; blood had thus been shed ; 
a few penetrated into the chapel, and insulted the worshippers : 
they were with difficulty ejected; the gates were closed and 
barred. The convent, strange as it may seem, was prepared 
for a siege : there were arms, munitions, even cannon. But on 
the first message of the Signory, commanding all but the 
monks to quit the convent, some withdrew. Francesco Valori 
had set the example, after urging submission, of retreat 
through a postern-gate : it was hoped that he went to rally 
the Piagnoni without to a rescue. The more fanatic followers 
rushed to arms; they were headed by Benedetto, a distin- 
guished miniature painter. Among the rest was Luca della 
Eobbia : the hands accustomed to model those chaste and 
exquisite Madonnas wielded a sword : he himself deposes to 
his having passed that sword through the reins of one man ; 
struck another in the face ; and disarmed two more. The 
defence was desperate : they tore off the tiles of the buildings, 
and showered them down on their assailants. 7 In the mean- 
time Savonarola had made a procession through the cloisters 
and had taken up his post upon his knees before the altar. 
Francesco Valori was summoned before the Signory: he was 
foully murdered on the way and his palace plundered, as were 
many others of the principal Piagnoni. Warning after warn 
ing came from the Signory to St. Mark's, threatening con- 
fiscation, exile, to all laymen who should remain in the 

7 Compare the whole account in the Cedrus Libani, the author of which took 
great part in the strife. This, he says, was unknown to Savonarola. 

F 



66 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. 

convent. The defenders gradually fell off. A new band of 
800 ruffians, of the lowest class, mere plunderers, joined the 
assailants. At length came a peremptory order from the 
Signory and commissioners, to seize the persons of Savonarola, 
Domenico Buonvicini, Silvestro Maruffi. Even then Savona- 
rola might have been saved by flight: he was betrayed by 
a Judas, 8 as he is termed by the poet, the author of the 
'Cedrus Libani,' the most accurate chronicler of the event. 
Malatesta Sacramoro declared that the convent ought not to 
be destroyed for his sake: 'The Shepherd should lay down 
his life for the sheep.' Savonarola made a short speech, m 
Latin, to his followers, and took a touching farewell. Together 
with Domenico (Silvestro was not arrested till later, betrayed 
in his concealment by the same Malatesta) he came forth into 
the piazza, their hands bound behind their backs. They were 
received with a wild howl of joy and a volley of stones. The 
guards crossed their halberds above them, to prevent their 
being torn to pieces ; his enemies, in profane mockery, adapted 
to him words from the New Testament; words uttered to his 
Divine Master at the same sad hour. They struck him behind. 
'Prophesy who it was that smote thee.' They twisted his 
delicate hands so as to wring out a cry of pain: one kicked 
him behind, and coarsely said, 'There is the seat of his 
prophetic power. 5 

The intelligence flew to Rome. The remorseless joy of the 
Pope broke out in five briefs. One congratulated the Signory 
on their virtuous rigour. It enjoined them, having questioned 
Savonarola on all which concerned the State, to send him to 
the frontier, to be tried for his religious offences at Rome. 
The second gave the vicar-general of the archbishop and the 
chapter power to absolve all concerned in the attack on the 
convent, even if guilty of homicide, and to suspend all sentences 
against the others; to publish a jubilee at Florence, a plenary 
indulgence, with re-admission into the pale of the Church, to 

s Yet Sacramoro had been one of those who had offered to pass through the fire. 
Marchese, Documenti, p. 174. 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA. 



67 



all the Piagnoni who should repent of their errors. The other 
briefs were to the Franciscans and Francesco di Puglia, highly 
approving their zeal and success in unmasking the impostor. 
The Signory had not awaited these briefs to enter on the 
interrogatory of Savonarola. On the 9th, the very next day, 
began the examination of the prisoners : it was continued, with 
the exception of Easter Day, till the 19th. The answers of 
Savonarola were of studied obscurity. The first day he was 
submitted to torture of that kind which, in the horrible 
nomenclature of the dungeon, is called hoisting. A cord is 
passed under the armpits ; the body suddenly hauled up, and 
let down with violence that wrenches every joint. This was 
thought the mildest torment. M. Perrens observes that 
Savonarola himself had proposed to apply it to obstinate 
gamblers. But the frame of Savonarola was, as is common in 
men of excitable temperament, singularly delicate and sensi- 
tive. 9 He broke down at once, and confessed all which they 
asked : no sooner was the agony over than he revoked his con- 
fession. Examination, torture, re-examination, wrung forth but 
a wild incoherent mass of confession, and recantation of con- 
fession, on which no legal process could be framed. There 
needed a subtle villain, who could mould all this into something 
of which law might take cognizance. A notary of bad character, 
one Ceccone, offered himself, at the price of 400 crowns, as the 
agent in this infamy. He was concealed during the interroga- 
tory ; out of the admissions or free or enforced confessions of 
the Friar he made a long, minute report, extending over his 
whole life, full of gross contradictions and monstrous improba- 
bilities. This was adroitly substituted for the genuine report, 
and published to wondering Florence. Of the villany of 
Ceccone there can be no doubt. It rests not only on the 
authority of Savonarola's admiring biographers but on the 
honest Nardi and the grave Gruicciardini. It is confirmed by 

9 In the odious letter addressed to the Pope by the Signory, in which they 
humbly thank his Holiness for his great goodness in allowing them to torture a 
man in orders, they assert that he was ' potentissimi corporis,' and rather boast of 
his being tried 'multa et assidua questione multis diebus.' — Marchese, p. 185, 

f 2 



g 8 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. 

the process itself, which may be read with all its palpable 
fictions. The wretch, however, did not satisfy his employers, 
and received but some paltry 30 crowns. On April 19 the 
report was read to Savonarola : he was asked if he admitted its 
truth. Savonarola would strive no longer. He answered in 
ambiguous phrase, < What I have written is true,' or 'What I 
have written I have written.' The Judas of the faction, 
Malatesta Sacramoro, summoned with other friars of St. 
Mark's to bear witness against him, said, tauntingly, 'Ex ore 
tuo credidi, et ex ore tuo discredo.' Savonarola deigned no 
reply. 

Even now there seemed difficulty in proceeding to capital 
punishment. Savonarola remained in his prison without further 
interrogatory for a month. He employed his time in writing 
a commentary on the Penitential Psalm 1. ; he began another 
on the xxxth— < In thee, Lord, have I put my trust.' Pen 
and paper were then forbidden him. In the meantime a new 
Signory was to take office on May 1. There was even now a 
dread of re-action, though the heads of the Piagnoni had been 
sent into exile, and others hostile to him recalled. Eecourse 
was had to the unconstitutional measure of disfranchising 200 
members of the Great Council— Veri de' Medici, a known enemy 
of the Friar, was Gonfalonier of Justice. 

The first act of the new Signory was to demand permission 
from the Pope to proceed to the capital sentence. Alexander 
still desired to make an awful example of the rebel in Eome. 
But the Signory insisted that his punishment in Florence was 
absolutely necessary to disabuse the deluded people. All were 
most eager, they said, to see the punishment of the deceiver. 
They adhered resolutely to their prior right of vengeance. 
They thanked the Pope in words of incredible baseness for his 
divine virtue and immense goodness in ceding to them this 
privilege. On the 14th he appointed two commissions to pre- 
side, in his name, at the execution of a man of the inviolable 
sacerdotal order. One of these was Giovacchino Torriano of 
Venice, general of the Dominican order, of high character for 



Essay I.] SAVONAROLA. 69 

learning and gentleness ; the other a Spanish doctor, Eomolino, 
a man of true inquisitorial mercilessness, a sure guarantee 
against the possible fraternal weakness of his colleague ; he was 
reported to have said, ' We shall see a tine blaze ; I have the 
condemnation safe in my hands.' 

On the 20th, the morrow of their arrival at Florence, Eomo- 
lino summoned before him Savonarola and Fra Silvestro. Fra 
Domenico, it is uncertain for what cause, was left out. One of 
the Arrabbiati reminded Eomolino of the omission. 6 It were 
dangerous to leave one of them ; they must be extirpated, root 
and branch.' Of course, replied Eomolino ; a miserable friar 
(frataccio), more or less, what can it signify ? 

On May 20 took place a new examination before the com- 
missioners of the Pope. Of this examination Nardi has given 
an account ; and from him M. Perrens has said, that in Sa- 
vonarola appeared a wonderful struggle betiveen the weakness 
of the flesh and the energy of a courageous spirit. But he adds, 
4 that of this process, of the answers of Grirolamo and Silvestro, 
there remains not a trace. It was sent to Eome by Eomolino, 
and has never been found.' At the end of a volume, the ' Ap. 
pendice alia Storia Politica dei Municipi Italiani,' by Signor 
Griudici, published in 1850, we find a document — 'Processo di 
Frate Grirolamo Savonarola.' The author of this work, Signor 
Griudici, is a man of high character. The process is stated 
to be taken from the Magliabecchian Library. It contains 
the earlier examination, agreeing in substance with Ceccone's 
falsified process, as it appears in Quetif and Mansi. But in 
addition there is a full report of the examinations in May 
before Eomolino. It is a document of profound interest ; the 
simple and terrible pathos of some of its passages is to us 
a guarantee of its authenticity. Savonarola was questioned by 
Eomolino in the presence of Torriano, with two of the gon- 
faloniers, whose names are given, and other of the magistrates 
of Florence, whether he admitted the truth of his former con- 
fessions to which he had subscribed, and he replied in the 
affirmative. Questions were put on his relations with foreign 



70 SAVONAROLA. LEssay I. 

sovereigns : what cardinals were his friends ? He was at length 
asked whether he had said that the Pope was not a Christian ; 
had never been baptized ; was no true Pope ? His answer was, 
that he had never said these things. He had written them in 
a letter which he had burned, and which was the draft of those 
he had proposed to write to the Kings. He was asked if he 
had spoken the truth, and the whole truth. As he made no 
further answer, Eomolino commanded that he should be 
stripped, to be hoisted by the cord. He fell on his knees, in 
an agony of fear, and exclaimed—' God, thou hast caught me 
(colto); I confess that I have denied Christ, I have told lies. 
Signory of Florence, bear me witness, that I have denied him 
for fear of torture ; if I must suffer, better that I suffer for the 
truth. What I have said I received of God— God grant me re- 
pentance for having denied thee from fear of torture.' In the 
meantime he was stripped. He threw himself again on his knees, 
showed his arms distorted, and went on to say—' Oh God, I have 
denied thee for fear of torture.' Hauled up, he said, ' Jesus aid 
me, now thou hast caught me' (colto). When he was hung up by 
the cord, they asked him why he had said so— 'For good reason 
—lacerate me not so ; I will speak the truth, surely, surely/ 
'Why hast thou denied just now?' 'Because I am mad.' 
When set down, he said, ' When I see the instruments of torture 
I lose myself; when I am in a room, with a few quiet persons, 
I speak better.' In these few heart-rending sentences is to us 
the key to the whole of Savonarola's confession. The imploring 
pardon of Jesus for having denied him speaks volumes. After 
that there is nothing that he will not admit— nothing that he 
will not recant— confessions betrayed to him by his fellow 
sufferers ; his contumelious vituperations of the Pope, the 
falsehood of his visions, his schism, his letters to the Kings to 
summon a General Council, his pride and madness, his factious 
turbulence in Florence, his cold recommendation to mercy of 
the five of the Medici faction who were put to death. And yet 
his priestly judges were not satisfied. The next day there was 
another examination and again torture. The main object seems 



Essay I.] SAVONAKOLA. 71 

to have been to extort confession about his intercourse with the 
Kings concerning the Council and the deposition of the Pope, 
still more his connections with the cardinals inimical to 
Alexander, especially the Cardinal S. Pietro in Vincula and 
the Cardinal of Naples. 

There is a frightful official brevity in the notice which closes 
the examination. 

A di xxii di Maggio detto 

Fra Girolamo, | a ore 13 furono degradati, e poi arsi in piazza 
Fra Domenico, > , «. 
Fra Silvestro, J de 

Though hastening to the melancholy end, we must be some- 
what more particular. On the evening of the 22nd the sentence 
of death was communicated to him. According to the usage a 
certain James Nicolini was to pass the night with Savonarola. 
< 1 come not,' he said, 6 to urge resignation on one who has con- 
verted a whole people to virtue.' Girolamo calmly answered, 
6 Do your duty.' He refused to sup, lest the process of diges- 
tion should interrupt his serious meditations. He prayed 
fervently and long, laid his head on Nicolini's lap, and slept 
quietly. Nicolini was astonished that he smiled and talked in 
his sleep. The feebler Domenico heard his sentence with 
calmness ; his last words were a wish that the works of his 
master, bound, should be placed in the library of the convent, 
and another copy in the refectory, to be read during meals. 
The visionary somnambulist Maruffi broke down; he had neither 
the courage of the martyr nor the resignation of the saint. 
In the morning they were conducted to the chapel, and re- 
ceived the Holy Communion. Plenary absolution offered in 
the Pope's name was humbly accepted by the victims of his 
cruelty. Savonarola spoke a few touching words, imploring 
the pardon of God for any sins he might have committed— 
any scandal he might have occasioned. The Einghiera was 
connected by a wooden bridge with the place of execution ; 
the planks were so badly laid, that wanton and cruel boys 
thrust pointed sticks through the crevices to prick their feet. 



72 



SAVONAEOLA. 



[Essay I. 



The place was crowded to see the men who but now had been 
adored, bound to the gibbets and burned. They were stripped 
of their clothes, with only a long woollen shirt— their feet naked. 
The Prior of Santa Maria Novella and the Bishop of Vaison, 
both Dominicans of their own order, had the office of degrading 
them. They were clad again in their sacerdotal robes, which 
were then ignominiously stripped off — 6 1 separate you,' said 
the bishop, 4 from the church militant and the church trium- 
phant.' 'Not from the church triumphant,' said Savonarola, 
' that is beyond thy power.' The sentence of death was read by 
Eomolino. Silvestro died first— all he said was, 6 Lord, into 
thy hands I commit my spirit.' Then followed Domenico, with 
quiet courage. Savonarola had to witness their sufferings, of 
which he could not doubt that himself was the cause. Did 
he think them victims or glorious martyrs ? He died full of 
confidence in his own innocence — firm, calm, without the least 
acknowledgment of guilt — with no word of remonstrance 
against the cruelty of his enemies — at peace with himself, in 
perfect charity with all. A moment the flames were blown 
aside and showed the bodies untouched — 6 a miracle,' shouted his 
partisans, while his enemies mocked the miracle of a moment. 
In vain their ashes were cast into the Arno, lest the remains of 
the martyrs should become objects of worship. Bones were 
found, or supposed to be found ; and even splinters of the 
gibbets became the treasures of succeeding generations. 

Savonarola died, so wrote his admiring biographer, from this 
cause only, because he was hated by the wicked, beloved by 
the holy. 1 That he died because he was a preacher of righteous- 
ness in an age and in a church, at the very depths of unrighteous- 
ness, who will deny ? His absolutely blameless moral character, 
his wonderful abilities, his command of all the knowledge of 
his time, his power of communicating his own holiness to 
others, even his rigid authority as regards the great doctrines 
of his church, who will impeach ? Let any one read in Italian, 

1 ' Una hsec perditionis caussa Hieronymo, displicuisse nequissimis, placuisse 
sanctissimis.' — Pico Mirand. in Prsefat. , • 



Essay I.J 



SAVONAROLA. 



73 



and he will not be unrewarded, the 'Trionfo 2 della Croce,' and 
determine this point for himself. His other practical works, 
as on the Simpleness of the Christian Life, if not of equal 
excellence, are as faultless and devout. 

We have not disguised what, from our point of view, seems 
to detract from the grandeur, the heroic, the saintly, the true 
Christian grandeur of Fra Grirolamo. It was a monkish refor- 
mation which he endeavoured to work, and therefore a reforma- 
tion which could not have satisfied the expanding mind of man. 
But it was the monkish reformation of a church which still 
professed to believe monasticism to be the perfection of 
Christianity, a higher gospel than that of Christ. We have 
touched on his extravagances of religious passion, the rigour of 
his puritan asceticism. But not only was he an Italian ; he 
was of a church in which, as witness the lives of half the saints 
(look especially to S. Francis), those extravagances had been 
held up as the very consummation of holiness. If he was a 
religious demagogue, and mingled too much in secular affairs, 
how many, not of the worst only, but of the best in the history 
of his church, would disdain to elude the imputation ! Above 
all he did not discern the dim line which distinguishes the 
mission of a preacher of righteousness from that of a prophet 
of the Future ; he did not, in his ecstatic fervour of zeal, 
discriminate between the ordinary and the extraordinary gifts 
of divine grace ; yet his church believed herself to be endowed 
with a perpetual gift of miracle — with a perpetual, if more 
rarely exercised, gift of prophecy. How many who had pro- 
phesied smooth things of her, or even harsh things, had been 
canonised ! It was not because they were untrue that Savo- 
narola's predictions were presumptuous, impious, but because 
they were unwelcome. Had Charles VIII. descended the Alps 

2 Dr. Madden expresses his surprise that the book was never translated into 
English ; but, though his bibliographical labours are the best part of his book, he 
is mistaken. "We have before us a small volume, printed at Cambridge, by John 
Field, Printer to the University, 1661 : The Truth of the Christian Faith; or the 
Triumph of the Cross of Christ. By Hier. Savonarola. Done into English out of 
the Author's own Italian copy. &c. The fine poetic preface is left out. 



74 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. 

on the Pope's side, Girolamo's prediction had been a revelation 
from heaven. We may believe the whole to have been hallu- 
cination—part a fond perversion of unmeaning words by his 
partisans, part mere human sagacity— some fortunate guesses, 
or prophecies which wrought their own accomplishment, but all 
their real criminality to Rome was their hostility to Eome. 
This was felt in his own day (the re-action was almost imme- 
diate) ; and it has been felt by the better part of the Koman 
Catholic Church at all times. There has been a strong demand 
for that highest homage to man, his canonisation. It was said 
to have been contemplated even by Julius II. ; if we are to 
trust Dr. Madden, it has been thought of in our own time. How 
far it would tax theological subtlety to reconcile the excommuni- 
cation, the murder of Savonarola (we can use no milder term), 
by one Infallible Pope, his sanctification by another, is no 

concern of ours. 

But Italy, Rome, the Church, repudiated the reformation, 
the more congenial and less violent reformation of Savonarola. 
A wider, more complete Reformation — a Reformation on dif- 
ferent principles became more and more necessary and in- 
evitable. It was only by the re-action of the more formidable 
revolution of the North, that the South at length conformed to 
some of the views of the reformer of Ferrara. In. truth the 
Roman Catholic Church owes a debt of gratitude to Luther, 
only inferior to our own. Had Luther never lived, Loyola had 
never been endured ; but for the Confession of Augsburg, the 
Council of Trent had not sat— that Council which, however fatal 
and irremediable the evil which it wrought by petrifying the 
opinions and superstitions of the middle ages into doctrines, did 
infinite service to the discipline, to the decency, to the religion 
of the Roman Church. The Reformation of Luther worked 
wonders even where Luther was repudiated as a son of perdition. 

But Luther was a renovator of the Church, including, as did 
his Reformation, the secession of half Christendom, little fore- 
seen by the Florentine prophet ; had he foreseen it, he had hid 
his face in sorrow. His own renovation was to be a renovation 



Essay I.] 



SAVONAROLA, 



75 



(that was the very substance of his prophecy) during the days 
of men living, to say nothing of the conversion of the Turks, 3 
which he promised with equal certitude as constantly at hand. 
His political vaticinations were at least as sadly untrue; 
such as the promise to Florence of an age of unexampled 
prosperity after her tribulations. The star of the Medici was 
in the ascendant, as baleful to the Church of Eome as to 
Florence. Leo X., the boy cardinal, who fled before Savona- 
rola's face ; during his papacy, witnessed or rather caused the 
rise of Luther. The bastard Medici, Clement VII., witnessed 
or caused the revolt of Henry VIII. , the emancipation of the 
English Church, and the sack of Eome. Catherine de' Medici 
is inseparably connected with the day of St. Bartholomew. 
Tuscany, Florence, fell to the Grand Dukes of the House of 
Medici, than whom no more odious or crafty tyrants ever 
trampled on the liberties, or outraged the moral sense of man. 

3 See among many such passages the splendid close of the 37th Sermon 
on Amos and Zechariah, p. 384. In another place, he says : ' I Turchi s' hanno 
a battezzare, e cosi sara ; e se non fussi stato la tua incredulita e la tua ingrati- 
tudine, io t' harei detto non solamente 1' anno, ma il mese e il di.' — Predica xxvi. 
Sopra i Salmi, p. 198 



76 



II. 

LIFE OF ERASMUS. 1 

(July, 1859.) 

Almost all remarkable events, wonderful discoveries, mighty 
revolutions, have had their heralds, their harbingers, their 
prophets. The catastrophe, seemingly the most sudden, has 
been long in silent preparation. The earthquake has been 
nursing its fires, its low and sullen murmurs have been heard 
by the sagacious and observant ear, the throes of its awful 
coming have made themselves felt ; significant and menacing 
movements are remembered as having preceded its outburst. 
The marked, if we may so say, the epochal man is rarely with- 
out his intellectual ancestors : Shakespeare did not create the 
English Drama ; how long and noble a line, Galileo, Copernicus, 
Kepler, foreshowed Newton! The Eeformation, above all, had 
been long pre-shadowed in its inevitable advent. It was 
anticipated by the prophetic fears and the prophetic hopes of 
men ; the fears of those who would have arrested or mitigated 
its shock, the hopes of those who would have precipitated a 
premature and, it might be, unsuccessful collision with the 
established order of things. More than one book has been 
written, and written with ability and much useful research, on 
the 'Reformers before the Reformation;' but we will pass over 
the more remote, more obscure, or at least less successful, 
precursors of the great German, the English, and the French 
antagonists of the mediaeval superstitions and the Papal 

1 Leben des Erasmus von Rotterdam. Von Adolf Miffler. Hamburg, 1828. 
Nouvdle Biographic universelle. Tome xvi. Art. Erasme. Paris, 1856. 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



77 



Despotism. We will leave at present unnamed those who 
would have evoked a pure, lofty, spiritual, personal religion 
from the gloom and oppression of what we persist in calling 
the Dark Ages. There are two names, however, of surpassing 
dignity and interest, the more immediate and acknowledged 
harbingers of that awful crisis which broke up the august but 
effete Absolutism dominant over Western Christendom, and 
at once severed, and for ever, Northern and Southern, Latin 
and Teutonic Christianity. These two were Savonarola and 
Erasmus. 

We have but recently directed the attention of our readers 
to the life and influence of Savonarola. Since that time we 
have been informed, some important documents have been 
brought to light, and a life is announced by an Italian, who 
has devoted many years to researches among archives either 
neglected or unexhausted ; and hopes are entertained, among 
some of his more intelligent countrymen, that, in this work, 
even more full and ample justice will be done to the great 
Florentine Preacher. Still, however interesting it may be to 
behold Savonarola in a more clear and distinct light, our 
verdict on his character and his influence as a Eeformer is not 
likely to be materially changed. With all his holiness, with 
all his zeal, with all his eloquence, with all his power over the 
devout affections of men, with all his aspirations after freedom, 
with all his genial fondness for art, with all his love of man, 
and still higher love of Grod, Savonarola was a Monk. His 
ideal of Christianity was not that of the Grospel ; he would 
have made Florence, Italy, the world, one vast cloister. The 
monastic virtues would still have been the highest Christian 
graces ; a more holy, more self-sacrificing, but hardly more 
gentle, more humble, less domineering sacerdotalism would 
have ruled the mind of man. Even if Savonarola had escaped 
the martyr stake, to which he was devoted by Alexander 
VI. (Savonarola and Alexander VI.!!), it would have been 
left for Luther and the English Eeformers to reinstate the 
primitive Christian family as the pure type, the unapproach- 



7g LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. 

able model of Christianity, the scene and proline seedplot of 
the true Christian virtues. 

Erasmus was fatally betrayed in his early youth into the 
trammels of monkhood, on which he revenged himself by Ins 
keen and exquisite satire. A deep and for a long time inde- 
lible hatred of the whole system, of which he was never the 
votary, and refused to be the slave, though in a certain sense 
the victim, had sunk into his soul; and monkhood at that tame, 
with seme splendid exceptions, as of his friend Vitrarius 
of whom he has drawn so noble a character, was at ite lowest 
ebb as to immorality, obstinate ignorance, dull scholasticism, 
grovelling superstition. The Monks and the Begging Friars 
were alike degenerate ; the Jesuits as yet were not. But both 
Monks and Friars were sagacious enough to see the dangerous 
enemy which they had raised; their implacable hostility to 
Erasmus during life, and to the fame of his writings after 
death, is the best testimony to the effect of those writings, and 
of their common inextinguishable hostility. 

Erasmus has not been fortunate in his biographers; much 
has been written about him ; nothing, we think, quite worthy 
of his fame. His is a character to which it is difficult to be 
calmly just, and the difficulty, we think, has not been entirely 
overcome. He is of all men a man of his time ; but that time 
is sharply divided into two distinct periods, on either side of 
which line Erasmus is the same but seemingly altogether 
different ; a memorable instance how the same man may ex- 
ercise commanding power, and yet be the slave of his age. 
The earlier lives, to one of which Erasmus furnished materials, 
are of course brief, and strictly personal. Le Clerc is learned, 
ingenious, candid, but neither agreeable nor always careful : 
Bayle, as usual, amusing, desultory, malicious, unsatisfactory. 
Knight is most useful as to the visits and connections of Eras- 
mus in England, to which he almost entirely confines himself. 
It is impossible not to respect, almost as impossible to read, 
the laborious Burigny; of which the late Charles Butler's 
miniature work is a neat and terse, but meagre and unsatisfac- 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OP EEASMUS. 



79 



tory, abstract. If we could have designated the modern 
scholar, whose congenial mind would best have appreciated, 
and entered most fully into the whole life of Erasmus, it 
would have been J ortin. Jortin had wit, and a kindred quiet 
sarcasm. From no book (except perhaps the 6 Lettres provin- 
ciales ') has Gibbon drawn so much of his subtle scorn, his 
covert sneer, as from Jortin's 6 Remarks on Ecclesiastical His- 
tory.' In J ortin lived the inextinguishable hatred of Roman- 
ism, which most of the descendants of the Exiles, after the 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, cherished in their inmost 
hearts, and carried with them to every part of Europe ; that 
hatred which in Bayle, Le Clerc, and many others, had an 
influence not yet adequately traced on the literature, and, 
through the literature, on the politics and religion of Christen- 
dom. It was this feeling which gave its bitterness to so much 
of Jortin's views of every event and dispute in Church history. 
In these he read the nascent and initiatory bigotry which in 
later days shed the blood of his ancestors. He detected in the 
fourth or fifth century the spirit which animated the Dragon- 
nades. Jortin was an excellent and an elegant scholar; his 
Latinity, hardly surpassed by any modern writer, must have 
caused him to revel in the pages of Erasmus ; he was a liberal 
divine, of calm but sincere piety, to whose sympathies the 
passionless moderation of Erasmus must have been congenial ; 
nor was there one of his day who would feel more sincere 
gratitude to Erasmus for his invaluable services to classical 
learning and to biblical criticism. We cannot altogether 
assent to the brief review of Jortin's book growled out by the 
stern old Dictator of the last century, < Sir, it is a dull book.' 
It is not a dull book ; it contains much lively and pleasant 
remark, much amusing anecdote, many observations of excel- 
lent sense, conveyed in a style singularly terse, clever, and 
sometimes of the finest cutting sarcasm. But never was a book 
so ill composed : it consists of many rambling parts, without 
arrangement, without order, without proportion ; it is no more 
than an abstract and summary of the letters of Erasmus, in- 



g0 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. 

terspersed with explanatory or critical comments, and copious 
patches from other books. It is in fact < Eemarks on the Ll fe 
of Erasmus;' no more a biography than the ♦ Remarks on 
Ecclesiastical History' are a history of the Church. Of the 
later writers there is a laborious but heavy work by Hess, m 
two volumes, Zurich, 1790; a shorter by Adolf Muller, Ham- 
burg 1828, with a long, wearisome, and very German preface 
on the development of mankind, and of the individual man. 
The life, however, has considerable merit ; but Muller labours 
so hard not to he partial to Erasmus, as to fall into the 
opposite extreme. Perhaps the best appreciation on the 
whole, of the great Scholar is in an article in Ersch and 
Gruber's Cyclopedia. M. Nisard has a lively and clever sketch, 
which originally appeared in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes, 
and was reprinted in his 'Etudes sur la Renaissance, bnt, as id 
M Nisard's wont, too showy, and wanting in grave and earnest 
appreciation of a character like Erasmus 

Erasmus was born in the city of Rotterdam, October 28, 1467. 
Even before his birth he was the victim of that irreligious and 
merciless system which showed too plainly the decay and 
degeneracy of the monastic spirit. It blighted him wrth the 
shame of bastardy, with which he was taunted by ungenerous 
adversaries. His father before him was trepanned against his 
inclinations, against his natural disposition and temperament, 
into that holy function, of which it is difficult enough to 
maintain the sanctity with the most intense devotion of mmd 
and heart. If we did not daily witness the extraordinary 
influence of a strong corporate spirit, we might imagine that 
it was the delight of the monks of those days and their 
revenge npon mankind, to make others as miserable as they 
found themselves. In the words applied by Erasmns himself 
they might seem to compass heaven and earth to make prose 
lytes, snch proselytes usually fulfilling the words of th. 
Scripture. That strange passion for what might be called, n 
a coarse phrase, crimping for ecclesiastical recruits,-a phrase 
nnless kidnapping be better, often used by Erasmus,-withou 



Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 81 

regard to their fitness for the service, lasted to late times, and 
became extinct, if it be extinct (which we sadly doubt), with 
monkhood itself. Our readers may recollect how the J esuits 
laid their snares for promising youths, and nearly caught 
Marmontel and Diderot ; though perhaps it was easier to make 
clever Jesuits of clever boys, than devout or even decent 
monks of those who had no calling for cloistral austerities or 
ascetic retreat. In the days of Erasmus the system was carried 
on without any scruple. 4 What boy was there of hopeful 
genius, of honourable birth, or of wealth, whom they did not 
tempt with their stratagems, for whom they did not spread 
their nets, whom they did not try to catch by their wiles, the 
parents often being ignorant, not rarely decidedly adverse. This 
wickedness, which is more wicked than any kidnapping (plagio), 
these actors dare to perpetrate in the name of piety.' 2 This 
was intelligible when they sought to enlist sons of family or 
wealth, who might fill their coffers or extend their influence ; 
or men of very high promise, who might advance or extend 
their cause. But Grerard, the father of Erasmus, was one of 
ten sons, born of decent but not opulent parents, at Grouda 
(Tergau) in Holland. One, at least, of that large family (the 
desire to disembarrass themselves of the charge and respon- 
sibility of troublesome younger brothers was ever unhappily 
conspiring with the proselytising zeal) must be persuaded or 
compelled to enter into holy orders or the cloister. Gerard 
might seem by temperament and disposition the least suited 
to a life of mortification and sanctity. He was gay and 
mirthful ; even in later life he bore a Dutch name, best ren- 
dered ' the facetious.' But there was a graver disqualification, 
of which neither his parents nor the monks were ignorant ; he 
had formed a passionate attachment to the daughter of a 
physician. The opposition of his parents to the marriage, 
fatal to their design of driving him into the cloister, did not 
break off, but rendered the intimacy too close ; he fled from 



* Epist. ad Grunn&um. 



82 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 



[Essay II. 



his home. Margarita, who shouid have been his wife, retired 
to Kotterdam, where she gave birth to a son destined to a 
world-wide fame, (xerard, after many wanderings, had found 
his way to Eome. There he earned his livelihood by tran- 
scribing works, chiefly those of classical authors, the office of 
transcriber not being yet superseded by the young art of 
printing. He is said to have acquired a strong taste for those 
writers, and a fair knowledge of their works. A rumour was 
industriously spread, and skilfully conveyed to his ears, that 
his beloved Margarita was dead. In his first fit of desperation 
he severed himself from the world, and took the irrevocable 
vows. On his return to his native Grouda he found the mother 
of his son in perfect health. But he took the noblest revenge 
on the fraud which had beguiled him into Holy Orders : he 
was faithful to his vows. He was presented by the Pope with 
a prebend, a decent maintenance, in his native country. No 
suspicion seems from this time to have attached to his conduct, 
though he still preserved his animal spirits and wit, and the 
lighter appellation of his youth still clung to him. The 
mother, too, from that time lived with unsullied fame. It was 
said of her — 

Huic tini potuit succumbere culpa?. 3 

(xerard, the son of (xerard (the name was fancifully, it does 
not appear by whose fancy, Latinized into Desiderius, and 
Desiderius again repeated in the Greek Erasmus), was sent to 
the school at Gouda, kept by a certain Peter Winkel. Winkel 
s held him for a dunce ; but the dulness may have been in the 

3 Was there another son three years older than Erasmus ? The earlier lives, 
those of which Erasmus himself furnished the materials, are silent about him ; 
but if the narrative, in the celebrated Epistle to G-runnius, be the early life of 
Erasmus himself— and this cannot be reasonably doubted — there was ; and a 
passage in another letter, indicated by Jortin, seems conclusive. If so, the elder 
was a dull, coarse boy, who, having determined with Erasmus to resist, deserted 
his more resolute brother, and became a monk — a stupid and profligate one, whom 
Erasmus might be glad to forget, and for whose death he felt no very profound 
sorrow. But this makes the case of the deception practised on the father even 
worse. Dupin, a sound authority, and M. Nisard, admit the existence of the elder 
brother as certain. 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF EKASMUS. 



83 



teacher, not in the pupil. He is said to have profited as little 
by the scanty instruction which he received as a chorister at 
Utrecht. At nine years old he was sent to the school at 
Deventer, accompanied by his mother, seemingly an accom- 
plished woman, who, in addition to his ordinary studies, 
obtained -him lessons in design and drawing. Deventer was a 
school kept by a religions brotherhood, not bound by vows. 
The 'brothers of the common life' were the latest, and not 
the least devout and holy effort of monachism to renew its 
youth. The Order was founded by Grerard Grroot, no unworthy 
descendant of the monks of Clugny, of St. Bernard, or St. 
Francis ; they were rivals of the mystic school of Tauler, 
Eysbroeck, and De Suso, in the south of Grermany. Their 
monastery of Zwoll, near Brunswick, had nursed in its peaceful 
shades Thomas of Kempen (near Cologne), in our judgment 
the undoubted author of the last, most perfect, most popular 
manual of monastic Christianity, the 'De Imitatione Christi.' 
And now, as ever, in less than a century, among the brothers 
of Deventer, few hearts beat in response to the passionate, 
quivering ejaculations of that holy book, — they had become 
low, ignorant, intriguing, worldly friars. The light of the 
new learning was, however, struggling at Deventer against the 
old scholastic system. At the head of the school was Alexander 
Hegius, a pupil of the celebrated Grreek scholar Eudolph 
Agricola, the first who brought the Italian learning over the 
Alps. Of Hegius Erasmus ever spoke with profound respect. 
But Sinheim, the sub-rector, was his chief instructor ; he was 
too young, perhaps too poor, to come under the former. 
Sinheim was the first to discern the promise of Erasmus. On 
one occasion he addressed him : 6 Gro on as thou hast begun ; 
thou wilt before long rise to the highest pinnacle of letters.' 
Agricola himself, on a visit to Hegius, was so much struck by 
an exercise of the boy that, having put a few questions to him, 
and looked 4 at the shape of his head and at his eyes,' he 
dismissed him with the words, 6 You will be a great man.' 
Erasmus himself says that at Deventer he went through the 



g4 LIFE OF EKASMUS. [Essay II. 

whole course of scholastic training, logic, physics, metaphysics, 
and morals— with what profit may be a question ; but he had 
learned also Horace and Terence by heart. What a step for 
one to whom Latin was to be almost his vernacular language ! 
Yet even at Deventer he was exposed to those trials, with 
which inveterate monkish proselytism had determined to beset 
him. ' There was no youth of candid disposition and of good 
fortune whom they (the monks and friars) did not study to 
break and subdue to their service. They spared neither flat- 
teries, insults, petty terrors, entreaties, horrible tales, to allure 
them into their own, or to drive them into some other, fold. 
I myself was educated at Deventer. When I was not fifteen, 
the President of that Institution used every endeavour to 
induce me to enter into it. I was of a very pious disposition ; 
but though so young, I was wise enough to plead my age and 
the anger of my parents if I should do anything without 
their knowledge. But this good man, when he saw that his 
eloquence did not prevail, tried an exorcism. " What do you 
mean ? " He brought forth a crucifix, and, while I burst into 
tears, he said, with a look as of one inspired, " Do you acknow- 
ledge that He suffered for you ? " "I do fervently." " By Him, 
then, I beseech you that you suffer Him not to have died in 
vain for you ; obey my counsels, seek the good of your soul, 
lest in the world you perish everlastingly." ' 4 

But the boy was obliged to leave Deventer. The plague 
bereft him of his mother ; the widowed father pined away with 
sorrow, and died at forty years of age. Erasmus was cast upon 
the world an orphan, worse than friendless, with faithless 
friends. 

His father appointed three guardians not of his own family ; 
he may have still cherished a sad remembrance of their unkindly 
conduct. Of these, one was Peter Winkel, master of the boy's 
first school. There was property— whence it came appears not, 
but sufficient for his decent maintenance, and for an University 



4 De Pronunciations, Opera, vol. i. p. 121, 122. 



.Essay II.] 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



85 



education ; sufficient, unhappily, to tempt these unscrupulous 
guardians. It was squandered away, or applied to their own 
uses : all the money was soon gone, but there remained certain 
bonds or securities. And now, like the father, the youth must 
be driven by fair or foul means into the cloister. The ambition 
of the promising scholar, in whom the love of letters had been 
rapidly growing, and had been fostered by the praise of distin- 
guished men into a passion, was to receive an education at one 
of the famous Universities of Europe. But the free and invigorat- 
ing studies of the University were costly, and might estrange the 
aspiring youth from the life of the cloister. He was sent to an 
institution at Herzogenbusch (Bois le Due) kept by another 
brotherhood, whose avowed object it was to train and discipline 
youth for the monastic state. The two years of his sojourn 
there were a dreary blank : years lost to his darling studies. 
These men were ignorant, narrow-minded, hard, even cruel : 
they could teach the young scholar nothing — they would not 
let him teach himself. The slightest breach of discipline was 
threatened with, often followed by, severe chastisement. He 
was once flogged for an offence of which he was not guilty ; it 
threw him into a fever of four days. The effect of this system 
was permanently to injure his bodily health, to render him sullen, 
timid, suspicious. It implanted in his heart a horror of cor- 
poral punishment. Eousseau himself did not condemn it more 
cordially, more deliberately. It was one of his few points of 
difference in after life with his friend Colet, who still adhered 
to the monkish usage of severe flagellation. One foolish, but 
well-meaning zealot, Eumbold, tried gentler means — entreaties 
flatteries, presents, caresses. He told him awful stories of the 
wickedness of the world, of the lamentable fate of youths who 
had withstood the admonitions of pious monks, and left the 
safe seclusion of the cloister. One had sat down on what 
seemed to be the root of a tree, but turned out to be a huge 
serpent, which swallowed him up. Another had been devoured, 
so soon as he left the monastery walls, by a raging lion. He 
was plied with incessant tales of goblins and devils. He was at 



86 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 



[Essay II. 



length released, having shown steadfast resistance, from this 
wretched petty tyranny, and returned to Grouda. At Grouda he 
was exposed to other persecutions, to the tricks and stratagems 
of the indefatigable Winkel, who seems (one of his colleagues 
having been carried off by the plague) to have become sole 
guardian ; his zeal no doubt for the soul of his pupil being 
deepened by the fear of being called to account for the property 
entrusted to his care. To admonitions, threats, reproaches, 
persuasions, even to the offer of an advantageous opening in 
the monastery of Sion, near Delft, the youth offered a calm but 
determinate resistance. He was still young, he said with great 
good sense — he knew not himself, nor the cloister, nor the 
world. He wished to pursue his studies; in riper years he 
might determine, but on conviction and experience, upon his 
course of life, A false friend achieved that which the interested 
importunity of his guardians, the arts, the terrors, the persua- 
sions of monks and friars had urged in vain. Later in life 
Erasmus described the struggles, the conflict, the discipline, 
and its melancholy close, under imaginary names, it may be, 
perhaps under circumstances slightly different. He mingled 
up with his own trials those of his brother, whose firmness, 
however, soon broke down ; he not only deserted but entered 
into the confederacy against Erasmus, then but sixteen, who 
had to strive against a brother of nineteen. He threw over the 
whole something of the licence of romance, and carried it on 
to an appeal to the Pope ; from whom he would even in later 
life obtain permission not to wear the dress of the Order. No 
doubt in the main the story is told with truth and fidelity 
in this singularly interesting letter to Lambertus Grrunnius, one 
of the scribes in the Papal Court. 5 He had formed a familiar 
attachment to a youth at Deventer. Cornelius Verden was a 
few years older than himself, astute, selfish, but high-spirited 
and ambitious. He had found his way to Italy ; on his return 
he had entered into the cloister of Emaus or Stein, not from 

5 This letter may be read among his Epistles, and also in the Appendix of 
Jortin. 



Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 87 

any profound piety, but for ease and self-indulgence, as the last 
refuge of the needy and idle. Erasmus suspected no treachery ; 
and the tempter knew his weakness. Verden described Stein 
as a quiet paradise for a man of letters : his time was his own ; 
books in abundance were at his command ; accomplished friends 
would encourage and assist his studies: all was pure, sober 
enjoyment ; pious, intellectual luxury. Erasmus listened, and 
after some resistance entered on his probation. His visions 
seemed to ripen into reality ; all was comfort, repose, indul- 
gence, uninterrupted reading, no rigid fasts, dispensations from 
canonical hours of prayer, nights passed in study with his friend, 
who took the opportunity of profiting (being very slow of learn- 
ing, and with only some knowledge of music) by the superior 
attainments of Erasmus. The pleasant peace was only broken 
by light and innocent pastimes, in which the good elder 
brothers condescended to mingle. So glided on the easy 
months ; but, as the fatal day of profession arrived, suspicions 
darkened on the mind of Erasmus. He sent for his guardians ; 
he entreated to be released ; he appealed to the better feelings 
of the monks. 6 Had they been,' he wrote at a later period, 
'good Christian religious men, they would have known how 
unfit I was for their life. I was neither made for them, nor 
they for me.' His health was feeble ; he required a generous 
diet ; he had a peculiar infirmity, fatal to canonical observance 
—when once his sleep was broken he could not sleep again. 
For religious exercises he had no turn ; his whole soul was in 
letters, and in letters according to the new light now dawning 
on the world. But all were hard, inexorable, cunning. He 
was coaxed, threatened, compelled. St. Augustine himself 
(they were Augustinian friars) would revenge himself on the 
renegade from his Order. Grod would punish one who had set 
his hand to. the plough and shrunk back. Verden was there 
with his bland, seemingly friendly influence. He would not 
lose his victim, the sharer in his lot for good or evil, the cheap 
instructor. Erasmus took the desperate, the fatal plunge. 
Ere long his eyes were opened ; he saw the nakedness, the worse 



88 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



[Essay II. 



than nakedness, of the land. The quiet, the indulgence, the 
unbroken leisure were gone. He must submit to harsh, capri- 
cious discipline ; to rigid but not religious rules ; to compa- 
nionship no longer genial or edifying. He was in the midst of 
a set of coarse, vulgar, profligate, unscrupulous men, zealots 
who were debauchees ; idle, with all the vices the proverbial 
issue of idleness. Erasmus confesses that his morals did not 
altogether escape the general taint, though his feeble health, 
want of animal spirits, or his better principles, kept him aloof 
from the more riotous and shameless revels. He was still sober, 
quiet, studious, diligent. Did any of these men ever read the 
bitter sarcasms, the bright but cutting wit of the 6 Praise of 
Folly ' and the £ Colloquies ? ' If they did read them, had they 
no compunctious visitings as to the formidable foe they had 
galled and goaded beyond endurance ? 

The youth's consolation was in his books. His studies he still 
pursued, if with less freedom and with more interruption from 
enforced religious ceremonies, with his own indefatigable zeal 
and industry. Either within or without the cloister he found 
friends of more congenial minds. William Herman of Grouda, 
with whom he entered into active correspondence, indulged in 
Latin verse making, which in that age dignified itself, and was 
dignified by Erasmus, with the name of Poetry. Erasmus wrote 
a treatise, like other voluntary or enforced ascetics, on the 
< Contempt of the World.' But while he denounced the cor- 
ruption of the world, it was in no monastic tone ; he was even 
more vehement in his invective against the indolence, the pro- 
fligacy, the ignorance of the cloister. This dissertation did not 
see the light till much later in his life. Among the modern 
authors who most excited his admiration was Laurentius Valla. 
Not only by his manly and eloquent style, but by the boldness 
and originality * of his thoughts, Valla had been the man who 
first assailed with success the monstrous edifice of fiction, which 
in the Middle Ages passed for history. His Ithuriel spear had 
pierced and given the death-blow to the famous donation of 
Constantine. 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



89 



So passed about five years, obscure but not lost. He was 
isolated except from one or two congenial friends. With bis 
family, wbo seem hardly to have owned him, he had no 
intercourse ; he was a member of a fraternity who looked on 
him with jealousy and estrangement, on whom he looked with 
ill-concealed aversion, perhaps contempt. He was one among 
them, not one of them. At that time the Bishop of Cambray, 
Henry de Bergis, meditated a journey to Eome in hopes of 
obtaining a Cardinal's hat. He wanted a private secretary 
skilful in writing Latin. Whether he applied to the monastery, 
which was not unwilling to rid itself of its uncongenial inmate, 
and so commended him to the Bishop, or whether the fame of 
Erasmus had reached Cambray, the offer was made and eagerly 
accepted. He left his friend Herman alone with regret ; and 
Herman envied the good fortune of his friend, who had hopes 
of visiting pleasant Italy. 

At nunc sors nos divellit, tibi quod bene vortat, 

Sors peracerba mihi. 
Me sine solus abis, tu Kheni frigora et Alpes 

Me sine solus adis, 
Italiam, Italiam lsetus penetrabis amcenani. 

But as yet Erasmus was not destined to breathe the air of Italy : 
the ambitious Prelate's hopes of the Cardinal's hat vanished. 
Erasmus remained under the protection of the Bishop at 
Cambray. He was induced to enter into Holy Orders. He 
continued his studies ; and as a scholar made some valuable 
friendships. At length, after five years, not wasted, but still to 
him not profitable years, he hoped to obtain the one grand 
object of his ambition — residence and instruction at one of the 
great Universities of Europe. Paris, the famous seat of theo- 
logic learning, seemed to open her gates to him.^ The Bishop 
not only gave permission but promise of support. The eager 
student obtained what may be called a pensionate or bursary 
in the Montagu College. But new trials and difficulties 
awaited him. The Bishop was too poor, too prodigal, or too 
parsimonious to keep his word. His allowance to Erasmus 



90 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



[Essay II. 



was reluctantly and irregularly paid, if paid at all. The poor 
scholar had not wherewithal to pay fees for lectures, or for the 
purchase of books : but he had lodging, and such lodging !— 
food, but how much and of what quality ! Hear his college 
reminiscences : 6 — 

Thirty years since I lived in a college at Paris, named from vinegar 
(Montaceto). ' I do not wonder,' says the interlocutor, ' that it was 
so sour, with so much theological disputation in it : the very walls, 
they say, reek with Theology.' Er. ' You say true ; 1 indeed brought 
nothing away from it but a constitution full of unhealthy humours, and 
plenty of vermin. Over that college presided one John Standin, a 
man not of a bad disposition, but utterly without judgement. If, having 
himself passed his youth in extreme poverty, he had shown some regard 
for the poor, it had been well. If he had so far supplied the wants of 
the youths as to enable them to pursue their studies in credit, without 
pampering them with indulgence, it had been praiseworthy. But what 
with hard beds, scanty food, rigid vigils and labours, in the first year 
of my experience, I saw many youths of great gifts, of the highest hopes 
and promise, of whom, some actually died, some were doomed for life to 
blindness, to madness, to leprosy. Of these I was acquainted with some, 
and no one was exempt from the danger. Was not that the extreme of 
cruelty ? . . . Nor was this the discipline only of the poorer scholars : 
he received not a few sons of opulent parents, whose generous spirit he 
broke down. To restrain wanton youth by reason and by moderation, 
is the office of a father; but in the depth of a hard winter to give 
hungry youths a bit of dry bread, to send them to the well for water, 
and & that foetid and unwholesome or frost-bound ! I have myself known 
many who thus contracted maladies which they did not shake off as 
long as they lived. The sleeping-rooms were on the ground-floor, with 
mouldy plaster walls, and close to filthy and pestilential latrime.' 

He goes on to dwell on the chastisements, to which we pre- 
sume from his age he was not exposed ; but in truth, even in 
this respect, monastic discipline was not particular ; and here it 
ruled in all its harshness — a further exemplification of the law 
of nature, that those who are cruel to themselves are cruel to 
others ; that the proscription of the domestic affections is fatal 
to tenderness and to humanity. 7 

6 See the Colloquia, Ichthyophagia. 

7 Eabelais' reminiscences of the College Montaigu were not more pleasing, 
Ponocrates says to Grandgousier, ' Seigneur, ne pense que je l'aye mis au college 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



91 



But Erasmus was forcing his way to celebrity. Even at 
Paris the young scholar's name began to make itself known in 
that which in those days had a real and separate existence, the 
republic of letters. This republic had begun to rival, to set 
itself apart from, the monastic world, and even from the Church. 
It hailed with generous welcome, and entered into friendly 
communication with young aspirants after literary distinction. 
Erasmus, the parentless, without fortune, without connections, 
without corporate interests, even without country, began to 
gather around himself a host of friends, which gradually com- 
prehended almost all the more distinguished names in Europe. 
In Paris he began to supply his failing resources by what in our 
modern academical phrase is -called taking private pupils. 
Paris was crowded with youth from all countries. At a later 
period we find Erasmus superintending the education of the 
son of a rich burgher of Lubeck ; but England offered the 
wealthiest and most generous youth. A member of the almost 
royal family of Grey, and the Lord Mountjoy, placed them- 
selves under the tuition of Erasmus. So with Mountjoy began 
a life-long friendship, which had much important influence, and 
might have had even more, on his career. It opened England 
to him, in which, had he chosen, he might have obtained an 
honoured domiciliation and a secure maintenance. Mountjoy's 
first act was to remove him from the pestilential precincts of 
the college to purer air, and doubtless more costly diet. Some 
time after he settled on his master a pension, which Erasmus 
held for life. He had an offer of a more promising pupil ; he 
was to cram an unlettered noble youth, the son of James 
Stanley, Earl of Derby, and so son-in-law to the King's mother, 
for a bishopric : a bishopric, that of Ely, was ere long obtained. 
The tutor was to receive 100 crowns for a year's drudgery, the 
promise of a benefice in a few months, and the loan of 300 

de pouillerie qu'on nomme Montaigu ; mieux l'eusse voulu mettre entre les gue- 
naulx de St. Innocent, pour l'enorme cruault£ et villenie que j'y ai cognue ; car 
trop mieulx sont traictes les forcez entre les Maures et Tartares, les meurtriers en 
la prison criminelle, voyre certes les chiens en vostre maison, que sont ces malautrus 
au dit College.' 



92 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



[Essay II. 



crowns till the benefice fell in. But Erasmus, from indepen- 
dence, or thinking that he might employ his time better than 
in this dull office of teaching perhaps an unteachable youth, 
declined the flattering proposal. 8 

From Paris Erasmus was more than once driven by the 
plague to the Low Countries and to Orleans. During one of 
these excursions he made an acquaintance, through Battus, a 
man of letters, with Anna Bersala, Marchioness of Vere, who 
lived in the castle of Tornhoens. The Marchioness, an 
accomplished woman, settled a pension upon him, and more 
than once assisted him in his necessities. In his turn Erasmus 
instructed her son Adolphus de Vere, and wrote for him the 
treatise ' De Arte conscribendi Epistolas.' The pension was 
somewhat irregularly paid, and Erasmus remonstrated on being 
left to starve, while his patroness wasted her bounty on illi- 
terate fellows who wore cowls. The allowance ceased at length, 
the lady, after having refused the noblest offers, having con- 
tracted a low and almost servile marriage. At Orleans he 
was received in the house of a wealthy canon and treated with 
generous kindness. He visited his native Holland too— the 
air agreed with him; but he could not endure the Epicurean 
banquets, the sordid and rude people, the stubborn contempt 
of all polite studies, the total want and the mean jealousy of 
learning. 9 

The first visit of Erasmus to England was in 1498. 1 He 
came at the invitation of Mountjoy. Even now the scholar 
found himself welcomed by some of the highest and most 
gifted of the land; presents, which became more free and 
bountiful as he became better known, were showered upon 
him ; he was an object of general respect and esteem. Already 

8 See Knight, p. 19. 

■ He called Holland ' beer and butter land.'— Miiller, p. 232. 

' The short visit, supposed in the older lives to have taken place m 1597, and 
which rested on erroneous dates in some of the letters, is now given up. The 
letters want a careful editor, such as Luther's have found in De Wette. See 
Miiller's Life, p. 168 ; Ersch and Gruber ; and the article in Didot's new Dictionnaire 
hiogra'phique. 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



93 



began his life-long friendship with More and with Colet, after- 
wards Dean of St. Paul's. His first impressions on his arrival 
and reception in England were flattering, even to the atmo- 
sphere and climate of the island. He had just emerged, be it 
remembered, from the unwholesome air of the French capital, 
and, till rescued by Mountjoy, from the most wretched quarter, 
and the most wretched lodging in that most wretched quarter 
of Paris, under frequent visitations too of what was called the 
plague. He had but exchanged that dreary domicile, still 
pursued by the plague, for Orleans, for Louvain, and some of 
the cities of the Low Countries and of Holland. No wonder 
that he was delighted with the pure, and not yet smoke-laden 
air of London and its neighbourhood. e You ask,' he writes to 
Piscator, an Englishman at Rome, 'how I am pleased with 
England. If you will believe me, my dear Robert, nothing 
ever delighted me so much. I have found the climate most 
agreeable and most healthful, and so much civility (humanitas, 
a far wider term), so much learning, and that not trite and 
trivial, but profound and accurate, so much familiarity with the 
ancient writers, Latin and Greek, that, except for the sake of 
seeing it, I hardly care to visit Italy.' e When I hear Colet, I 
seem to hear Plato. Who would not admire Grrocyn's vast range 
of knowledge ? What can be more subtle, more deep, more fine, 
than the judgment of Linacer ? Did Nature ever frame a dis- 
position more gentle, more sweet, more happy, than that of 
Thomas More?' Of his host Mountjoy, Erasmus is gratefully 
eloquent : 4 Whither would I not follow a youth so courteous, so 
gentle, so amiable ; I say not to England, I would follow him to 
the infernal regions.' In another letter, addressed to the so- 
called Poet Laureate, Andrelini 2 of Forli (he read lectures on 

2 The Latin poetry of Andrelini is of moderate merit ; but, according to Dr. 
Strauss (in his excellent Life of Hutten, vol. i. p. 102), Andrelini was the author 
of the famous Julius Exclusns, the most powerful satire of his day, which abounded 
in such satire. Jortin, we would observe, who knew well Andrelini's writings, 
thinks him quite incapable of such a work; but More, in his letter to Lee (Jortin, 
Appendix, ii. p. 686), says positively that it first appeared at Paris, and was attri- 
buted by Stephen Poncher, Bishop of Paris, to Faustus Andrelinus. The calm 



94 



LIFE OE EEASMUS. 



[Essay II. 



Poetry and Rhetoric in Paris), Erasmus takes a lighter tone. 
He talks of his horsemanship—' he had almost become a hunter. 
He had learned to be a successful courtier, and taken up the 
manners of the great. How could Andrelini linger in the 
filth of Paris ? If the gout did not hold him by the foot, let 
him fly to England.' Then follows a passage which has given 
rise to much solemn nonsense. It seems that in the days of 
Henry VII., our great-great-great-grandmothers, at meeting 
and at parting, indulged their friends, and even strangers, with 
an innocent salute. On this usage Erasmus enlarges to his 
poetic friend in very pretty Latin, and rather pedantically 
advises him to prefer the company of these beautiful and easy 
nymphs to his cold and coy muses. Such writers as Bayle and 
G-ibbon, of course, made the most of this ; absurdly enough, but 
not with half the absurdity of the grave rebuke with which 
many a ponderous and cloudy wig was shaken among ourselves 
at this wicked calumny on British matrons. 

Yet it should seem that Erasmus, at his first visit to Eng- 
land, was a pupil rather than a teacher. He was already a 
perfect master of Latin. In Oxford he found that instruction 
in Greek which, if Paris could furnish (and this may be 
doubted, for his friend and rival Budseus had not yet begun 
to teach) Erasmus was too poor to buy. But in the constant 
intercourse of England with Italy, some of her scholars had 
studied under the Greeks, who had fled after the taking of 
Constantinople and taught Italy, and, through Italy, Europe, 
their peerless language. Among these were W. Grocyn, pro- 
bably also Linacer and Latimer. Under Grocyn Erasmus 
made rapid progress, and soon after became sufficient master 
of Greek to translate parts of Libanius, Lucian, Euripides. 
Gibbon's pointed sentence that Erasmus learned Greek in 
Oxford to teach it in Cambridge is undeniably true. 

cutting sarcasm and the spirited Latinity of the Julius 'Exclusus are equally 
masterly. The satire may be read in the Appendix to Jortin, and in the sixth 
volume of Munch's edition of Hutten, which contains the Epistolce Obscurorum 
Virorum. It was repeatedly disclaimed by Erasmus. 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OE ERASMUS. 



95 



Erasmus had an opportunity of expressing his admiration of 
England in verse ; and this is the most curious, and perhaps 
the most trustworthy, relation of his adventures during his 
first visit. When he was at Lord Mountjoy's country-seat near 
Greenwich, More, inviting him to a pleasant walk, conducted 
him to the Royal Palace at Eltham, where all the royal children, 
except Prince Arthur, were under education. Prince Henry 
was then nine years old, and, even in his boyhood, according 
to the words of Erasmus, blended high majesty with singular 
courtesy. On his right was the Princess Margaret, aged eleven, 
afterwards the wife of James of Scotland; on his left the 
Princess Mary, aged four, at play: the Prince Edward was 
still in arms. Prince Henry, whom More had accosted with 
some complimant in Latin, addressed during dinner a short 
Latin letter to the foreign scholar, who, as he complained to 
More, was taken by surprise, and was not ready with a reply. 
Three days after Erasmus sent him in return a copy of verses 
of some length. Of this effusion England's assertion of her 
wealth and fertility is no unfavourable example : — 

At mihi nec fontes nec ditia flumina desunt, 

Sulcive pingues, prata nec ridentia. 
Fceta viris, fcecunda feris, foecunda metallis, 

Ne glorier, quod ambiens largas opes 
Porrigit Oceanus, neu quod nec amicius ulla 

Coelum, nec aura dulcius spirat plaga. 

But the king, Henry VIL, is the chief glory of the glorious 
realm. 

Rex unicurn hujus Fgeculi miraculum, 
* * # # 

Hoc regnuni ille putat, patriae carissimus esse, 
Blandus bonis, solis timendus impiis. 

And so on through many lines of classic adulation, in which 
Decius, Codrus, Numa, iEneas, and we know not who, are 
eclipsed by the iron Henry VII. The children have each 
their meed of flattery, Prince Arthur, Henry, and 6 the pearl ' 
Margarita. It is curious that the poet Skelton, who had not 



96 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. 

yet fallen upon his proper vein —inexhaustible, scurrilous, 
Swift-anticipating, doggrel,-and was only known by his grave 
verses on the fall of the House of York, and had been crowned 
with the poetic laurel by the University of Louvain, is described 
as directing Prince Henry's poetic studies— 

Monstrante fontes vate Skeltono sacros. 

In the dedication, Skelton is named even with higher praise, 
as the one light and glory of British letters. Erasmus of 
course spoke from common report, for he knew nothing of 
English. His conversation with the royal family must have 
been in Latin. 3 

The first visit of Erasmus to England was closed by an 
amusing, to him by no means pleasant, incident. Henry VII.'s 
political economy had rigidly prohibited the exportation of 
coined money. The rude Custom House officers seized twenty 
pounds, which poor Erasmus was carrying away, the first-fruits, 
and in those days to him of no inconsiderable value, of English 
munificence. There is a bitterness in his natural complaints, 
not quite accordant with the contempt of money which he 
often affects, but was too needy to maintain. 4 

Before the second visit of Erasmus to England (nearly seven 
years after, 1505-6) he had become, not in promise only, but 
in common repute, the greatest Transalpine scholar. Eeuchlin 
was now his only rival; but Eeuchlin's fame, immeasurably 
heightened by his persecutions and his triumph over his per- 
secutors, and by his vindication through the anonymous authors 
of the < Epistolse Obscurorum Virorum,' was chiefly confined to 
Hebrew learning, to which Erasmus had no pretence. Budasus, 
no doubt, surpassed him in Greek, not one in Latin. The 

3 Erasmus had heard of Dante and Petrarch, though as we shall hereafter see, 
he knew nothing of Italian; but England, he said, had vernacular poets who 

^f^^^ot his pecuniary difficulties. He was not seldom 
i LTl kind of sturdy literary mendicancy: later in life, by pensions, pre- 
STSJS^ £ — pLe in the Imperial court (not from the profits 
of his works), he had a fair income. We cannot enter into details. 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF EKASMUS. 



97 



first, very imperfect, edition of his £ Adagia,' at the vast erudi- 
tion of which the world wondered, had appeared in 1500. In 
1504 he had been summoned to deliver a gratulatory address 
at Brussels, in the name of the Estates of the Low Countries, 
to their sovereign, Philip the Fair, on his return to that city 
from Spain. 

The second English visit, like the first, was short. He was 
introduced by Grrocyn to Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury. 
On that occasion he presented Warham with a copy of his 
translation of the ' Hecuba ' of Euripides into Latin verse, with 
an iambic ode and a dedicatory epistle. Warham received 
him with great kindness, and made him a present; but as 
Grrocyn and he returned across the Thames, the present, on 
examination, turned out to be bat of moderate amount. The 
wary archbishop had been too often imposed upon by needy 
students, and thought it not unlikely that the same work, with 
the same dedication, had been offered to others before himself. 
After his return to Paris, Erasmus, rather indignant, and to 
exculpate himself from such base suspicion, sent the work, in 
print, to the archbishop, and added to it a version of the 
'Iphigenia.' Under the patronage of Bishop Fisher of Ko- 
chester, Chancellor of the University, Erasmus now visited 
Cambridge, but at present only for a short time. He is said, 
on doubtful authority, to have received a degree. It is not 
improbable that this visit to England was connected with the 
hope of raising funds for that which had been the vision of his 
youth, the day-dream of his manhood — a journey to Italy. To 
Italy, accordingly, during the next year, he set out from Paris. 
He had undertaken the charge of two sons of Boyer, a Genoese, 
physician to Henry VII. : they were gentle, manageable youths, 
—but their attendant, who had the care of their conduct, was 
rude, troublesome, impracticable. The connection soon came 
to an end. Erasmus, no doubt, had hoped to find Italy the 
pleasant and peaceful sanctuary of arts, letters, religion; in 
every city scholars pursuing their tranquil avocations under 
the patronage of their princes, quiet universities opening their 

H 



98 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. 

willing gates to students from every part of Christendom, the 
wealth of the Church lavished on well-stocked libraries, the 
higher Churchmen, the Chief Pontiff especially, in a court of 
enlightened men, whose whole thought was the encouragement 
of letters, and by letters the advancement of sound religion. 
He found Italy convulsed, ravaged, desolated with war, and at 
the head of one of the most ferocious, most rude, most destruc- 
tive of the predatory armies, was the Pope himself. Turin was 
his first resting-place ; and at the University of Turin, after a 
residence of some months, he obtained, what was then a high 
honour, the degree of Doctor. He passed to Bologna. Hardly 
had he arrived there when he heard the thunders of the Pope's 
forces, with Julius himself at their head, around the beleaguered 
city. He retired to Florence. He returned to Bologna in 
time to see the triumphant entrance of the Pope into the 
rebellious city. He made an excursion, for a third time, 
to Eome, where he again (in March, 1508) beheld the gorgeous 
ovation of the martial pontiff. The effect of this spectacle on 
the pacific mind of Erasmus, as he poured it forth in a disserta- 
tion added to his ' Adagia ' (printed at Venice during the next 
year), will hereafter demand our attention. On the more 
restless and turbulent mind of another reformer, himself not 
averse to the glorious feats of war, its revolting incongruity 
with the character of the Vicar of the Prince of Peace wrought 
with more fatal and enduring influence. Eead Hutten's vigor- 
ous verses 8 In tempora Julii' : — 

Hoc mens ilia hominum, partim sortita Deorum, 
Et pars ipsa Dei, patitur se errore teneri ? 
Ut scelere iste latro pollutus Julius omni, 
Cui velit occludat ccelum, rursusque recludat 
Cui velit, et possit momento quemque beatum 
Efficere, aut contra, quantum quiscunque bene egit, 
Et vixit bene, si lubeat, detrudere possit 
Ad Stygias poenas, et Averni Tartara ditis, 

Et quod non habet ipse, aliis divendere coelum. 

* * * * 

Et nunc ille vagum spargit promissa per orbem, 
Qui casdem et furias, scelerataque castra sequantur, 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 



99 



Se Duce, ut his coelum pateat. Qua fraude tot urbes, 

Et tot perdidit ille duces, tot millia morti 

Tradidit, et pulsa induxit bella acria pace, 

Tranquillumque diu discordibus induit armis 

Et scelere implevit mundum, fasque omne nefasque 

Miscuit, inque isto caneret cum classica motu 

Naufraga direpti finxit patrimonia Petri 

Vindice se bello asserere atque ulciscier armis, &c. &c. 

Oper. Hutteni, Munch. 1, 267. 

At Bologna Erasmus remained nearly a year. There is only 
one incident preserved of his pursuits ; about his friends not 
much is recorded. The plague broke out, the physicians and 
watchers of the infected persons were ordered to throw a white 
cloth over their shoulders, to distinguish them. The white 
scapular of his order, which Erasmus wore, caused him twice 
to be mistaken for one of these officials. As the scholar took 
pride in not knowing a word of Italian, he was mobbed, and 
once narrowly escaped with his life. From Bologna he re- 
moved to Venice, to print a new edition of his 4 Adagia ' at the 
famous Aldine Press. He became very intimate with the Aldi : 
his enemies afterwards reproached him as having degraded 
himself (such were the strange notions of literary dignity in 
those days) to the menial office of corrector of the press for 
some of the splendid volumes issued by the Venetian typo- 
graphers. At Venice and at Padua he found himself in the 
centre of many men, then of great distinction, but whose 
names we fear would awaken no great reverence, or might be 
utterly unknown to our ordinary readers. At Padua a natural 
son of James, King of Scotland, a youth -of twenty years old, 
but already Archbishop of St. Andrew's, was pursuing his 
studies. Both at Padua and afterwards when they met at 
Sienna, Erasmus charged himself with the young Scot's in- 
struction. He was a youth of singular beauty, tall, of sweet 
disposition. The juvenile archbishop was a diligent student 
of rhetoric, Greek, law, divinity, music. 5 He fell afterwards 

5 See his character in the Adagia, or in Knight, p. 96. He is mentioned also 
in the letter to Botzemius. 



100 LIFE OE EKASMUS. Essay II. 

at his father's side, at Flodden. Erasmus at length descended 
again to Eome, to make, it might be, a long, a lifelong 
sojourn. Those of the cardinals who were the professed patrons 
of letters received him with open arms — the Cardinal St. 
George, the Cardinal of Viterbo, the Cardinal de' Medici, so 
soon to ascend the papal throne as Leo X. He describes in 
one of his letters his interview with the Cardinal Grrimani, 
who displayed not only the courtesy of a high-born and ac- 
complished churchman, but a respect, almost a deference, for 
the poor adventurous scholar, which showed at once the footing 
on which men of letters stood, and what Erasmus might have 
become, had he devoted his transcendent learning and abilities 
to the Koman court and to the service of the Papacy. Pope 
Julius himself, unconscious of the unfavourable impression 
which he had made on the peaceful Teuton, condescended to 
notice him ; he was offered the rank, office, and emoluments 
of one of the Penitentiaries. Julius put the scholar to a 
singular test, He commanded him to declaim one day against 
the war which he was meditating against Venice ; on another, 
in favour of its justice and expediency. Erasmus either thought 
it not safe to decline, or was prompted by his vanity, in the 
display of his powers and of his Latinity, to undertake the peril- 
ous office, or probably treated it merely as a sort of trial of his 
skill in declamation after the old Eoman fashion. By his own 
account he did not natter the Pope by arguing more strongly 
on the warlike side ; but the weaker oration being in favour of 
the war, and recited before Pope Julius, could not fail of 
success. After his departure from Eome, however, he dis- 
burdened himself of his real, heart-rooted sentiments; he 
wrote his 4 Antinolemo,' a bold tract, which at that time did 
not see the light, but was afterwards embodied in his ' Querela 
Pacis,' and proclaimed to the world all his intense and cherished 
and ineffaceable abhorrence of war. 

Erasmus was not destined, nor indeed disposed, to bask away 
his life in the calm sunshine of papal favour, or under the sky 



Essay II.] LIFE OF EEASMUS. 101 

of Italy. Intelligence from England summoned him back to 
our shores. 

In April, 1509, Henry VIII. acceded to the throne. 6 During 
the preceding year the Prince Henry had addressed a flattering 
letter to Erasmus with his own hand, in his own Latin, ac- 
knowledging one which he had received from Erasmus, 6 written 
with that eloquence which, as well as his erudition, was famous 
throughout the world.' Lord Mountjoy wrote from the Court 
at Greenwich, urging his friend to return to England ; holding 
out the certain favour of the King, who had done him the 
unwonted honour of corresponding with him with his own 
hand ; promising him the patronage of Archbishop Warham, 
who sent him five pounds towards the expense of his journey, 
and as an earnest of future favours. Erasmus set forth without 
much delay : he crossed the Ehsetian Alps, by Coire r to Con- 
stance, the Brisgau, and Strasburg ; then down the Ehine to 
the Low Countries, from whence, after a short rest in Louvain, 
he crossed to England. He beguiled his time on his journey 
by meditating his famous satire on the Pope and on the Car- 
dinals, for which in Eome itself, and all the way from Eome, 
he had found ample food—' The Praise of Folly.' He finished 
it in More's house, who enjoyed the kindred wit, nor as yet 
took alarm at the bitter sarcasms against the Church of Eome 
and her Head. It was on this journey from the coast that he 
saw all the sacred treasures of the church of Canterbury. The 
stately grandeur of the fabric impressed him with solemn awe ; 
he admired the two lofty towers, with their sonorous bells ; he 
remarked among the books attached to the pillars the spurious 
Gospel of Mcodemus. He mentions, not without what reads 
clearly enough like a covert sneer, the immense mass of reliques, 
bones, skulls, chins, teeth, hands, fingers, arms, which they 
were forced to adore and to kiss ; but he was frightened (an 
ominous circumstance) at the profaneness of his companion, 
Gratian Pullen, a secret Wickliffite, who, notwithstanding the 
6 See Mountjoy's Letter, epist. x. 



102 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 



[Essay II. 



presence of the Prior, could not restrain his mockery, handled 
one relique, and replaced it with a most contemptuous gesture, 
and instead of a reverential kiss, made a very unseemly noise 
with his lips. The Prior, from courtesy or prudence, dismissed 
his guests with a cup of wine. At the neighbouring Hospital 
of Harbledon, Erasmus duly kissed the shoe of Thomas a 
Becket, an incident not forgotten in his pleasant ' Colloquy on 
Pilgrimages.' Already had he gazed in wonder at the inesti- 
mable treasures of gold and of jewels, which the veneration of 
two centuries had gathered round the tomb of Becket ; even 
Erasmus ventured to hint to himself, that such treasures had 
been better bestowed on the poor. He was sufficiently versed 
in Church History to know how immeasurably the sacerdotal 
power was strengthened in England by the death and saintship 
of Thomas a Becket. Little did he foresee how soon that power, 
with the worship of the Saint, should pass away ; that sump- 
tuous tomb be plundered, and its wealth scattered abroad, too 
little, it is to be feared, to the poor. Yet while he con- 
templated these treasures, these superstitions, and meditated 
on the character of Becket and of his worship, he seems to have 
had some prophetic foresight of the religious troubles of 
England. 7 

In London Erasmus took up his lodging in the Augustinian 
convent, with Bernard Andreas, the tutor of Prince Arthur, 
and Eoyal Historiographer, in which character he wrote his 
Life of Henry VII. 8 A quarrel arose about the expenses of the 

T He appears to have seen the reliques of Thomas a Becket on another occasion, 
in company with Colet. • I myself saw, when they displayed a torn rag with 
which he is said to have wiped his nose, the Abbot and other standers-by fall on 
their knees and lift up their hands in adoration. To Colet, for he was with me, 
this appeared intolerable ; to me these things seemed rather to be borne with, till 
they could be corrected without tumult.'— Erasmi Modus Orandi, Oper. v. p. 933. 
A critic of Jortin's Life (Additions, ii. p. 706), to whom Jortin seems inclined to 
bow, supposes only one visit, and that Gratian Pullen was Colet; but the 
WicJcliffism and rather coarse behaviour seem out of character with that devout 
man. 

8 This, the only contemporary biography of Henry VII., has appeared, exceed- 
ingly well edited, among the publications for which we are indebted to the Master 
of the Rolls. 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



103 



great scholar's maintenance, which was set at rest by the 
liberality of Lord Monntjoy. King Henry, however, whether 
too busy on his accession to the throne, and too much absorbed 
in European politics, hardly appears to have sustained the 
promise of welcome and patronage to the stranger whom he 
had allured into his realm: we hear but little of the royal 
munificence. Erasmus ever wrote with the highest respect of 
Henry ; propitiated him by dedications, in one of which he 
dexterously reminded him of their early intimacy; he after- 
wards vindicated the King's authorship of the famous answer 
to Luther ; and Henry was certainly jealous of the preference, 
shown by Erasmus in his later life, of the Imperial patronage. 
King Henry appreciated Erasmus more highly when he had 
lost the fame which he might have conferred upon his realm 
by his denizenship. The great Cardinal, of whose splendid 
foundations at Oxford Erasmus writes with honest admiration, 
condescended to make noble promises to Erasmus, first of a 
canonry at Tournay (that see was one of Wolsey's countless 
commendams), which, as his friend Lord Mountjoy was 
governor of the city, would have been peculiarly acceptable — 
afterwards of nothing less than a bishopric. But his hopes 
from Wolsey turned out, in the words of his friend Ammonius, 
dreams. He more than once betrays some bitterness towards a 
patron, whose patronage was only in large words, and contem- 
plated his fall, at least with equanimity. 9 At this period Fisher, 
Bishop of Eochester, seems to have been his most active and 
zealous advocate. Even Fisher was an avowed friend of the 
new learning ; as Chancellor of Cambridge it was his deliberate 
design to emancipate the University from the trammels of 
scholasticism : himself, at an advanced age, had studied Greek. 
Through his influence Erasmus, who, as we have seen, had 
visited Cambridge in 1506, was appointed first Margaret 
Professor of Divinity, afterwards Professor of Greek. He had 

9 His Epistles to Henry VIII. and to Wolsey are coiached in a kind of respect- 
ful familiarity. The scholar is doing honour even to the haughty King, as well 
as receiving it, and to his ' alter ego,' as Erasmus describes Wolsey. 



104 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 



[Essay II. 



lodgings in Queen's College ; in the time of Knight his rooms 
were still shown ; a walk is even now called by his name. His 
scholars were at first but few, his emoluments small, and he 
did not scruple to express his disappointment at Cambridge. 
He had spent sixty nobles, and got barely one from his lectures. 
His friends were obliged to solicit aid, chiefly from Fox, Bishop 
of Winchester, and Tunstall of Durham. He became, however, 
better reconciled to Cambridge, and preferred it, but for the 
society of two or three dear friends, probably Mountjoy, no 
doubt More and Colet, to London. After two or three years 
the Archbishop Warham took him by the hand (his dedications 
of his translated Greek plays had not been wasted on the ac- 
complished and liberal prelate), and from that time Warham's 
liberality was free and unintermitting, and the gratitude of 
Erasmus in due proportion. There are several long passages 
in which, during the life and after the death of Warham, he 
describes his character with equal eloquence and truth. 1 
Warham presented him to the living of Aldington, near Ashford, 
in Kent, to which he was collated March 22, 1511. Before the 
end of the year he resigned it, from scruples which did him 
honour; 'He could not pretend to feed a flock of whose 
language he was ignorant.' Erasmus disdained English, as 
he did all modern languages. The Archbishop accepted his 
resignation, assigning him a pension on the living. Erasmus 
still remonstrated, but the Archbishop argued that Erasmus 
was so much more usefully employed in instructing preachers 
than in preaching himself to a small country congregation, that 
he had a right to remuneration from the Church. To the 20l. 
from the living the Archbishop added another 20l. Knight 
justly mentions, as a very curious circumstance, that Aldington 
was the parish in which, some years after, appeared the Holy 

1 See especially the preface to the 3rd edition of Jerome, and the note to 1 
Thess. ii. 7, quoted at length by Jortin, i. 612, Epist. 922. 1234:— 'The contrast 
of the pious, enlightened, and unworldly Warham with Wolsey is very striking. 
Compare the preferments and possessions of Wolsey on his fall with Warham's 
dying demand of his steward, what money he had. " Thirty pounds ; " " Satis 
viatici ad ccelum" — " Enough to carry me to Heaven 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF EKASMUS. 



105 



Nun of Kent, whose history is so admirably told by Mr. Froude. 
The successor of Erasmus, Robert Master, was, if not the author, 
deeply implicated in that for a time successful, but in the end 
most fatal, imposture. Even Warham, to say nothing of More 
and Fisher, listened with too greedy or too credulous ears to 
this monstrous tale. 

During the whole of this visit, his longest sojourn in England, 
his intimacy increased with the two Englishmen who obtained 
the strongest hold on his admiration and affections — More and 
Colet. The genial playfulness of More, his as yet liberal views 
on the superstitions and abuses of the Church, and as yet 
unquestioned tolerance, qualified him beyond all men to enjoy 
the quiet satire, the accomplishments, the endless learning of 
Erasmus. To Colet he was bound by no less powerful sym- 
pathies ; the love of polite letters, the desire of giving a more 
liberal and elegant tone to education, the aversion to scholastic 
teaching, the avowed determination to supersede St. Thomas 
and Duns Scotus by lessons and sermons directly drawn from 
St. Paul and the Gospels, the contempt for much of the 
dominant superstition. Whatever made Colet an object of 
suspicion and jealousy, of actual prosecution as a heretic by 
Fitzjames, Bishop of London, against which he was protected 
by the more enlightened Warham — all, in short, which justified 
to him and may justify to the latest posterity the elaborate, 
most eloquent, and affectionate character which he drew of the 
Dean of St. Paul's, with Vitrarius, the Franciscan, his two 
model Christians — all conspired to unite the two scholars in the 
most uninterrupted friendship. Erasmus did great service to 
Colet's school at St. Paul's ; that most remarkable instance of a 
foundation whose statutes were conceived with a prophetic 
liberality, which left the election of the students and the course 
of studies absolutely free, with the avowed design that there 
should be alterations with the change of times and circum- 
stances. He composed hymns and prayers to the Child Jesus, 
and grammatical works, the 6 De Copia Verborum,' for the 
institution of his friend. Erasmus remained in England 



206 LIFE OF EEASMUS. [Essay II. 

during this visit about four years— from the beginning of 1510 
to 1514. Either disappointment, or restlessness, or ambition, 
the invitations of Charles of Austria, afterwards the Emperor, 
now holding his court at Brussels, or sanguine hopes, on account 
of the elevation of Cardinal de' Medici, who had shown him so 
much favour at Eome, to the Papal throne as Leo X., drew 
him forth again into the world. From Charles he received the 
appointment of honorary counsellor, to which was attached a 
pension of 200 florins. A bishopric in Sicily was held out as a 
provision for the northern scholar ; but the bishopric turned 
out not to be in the gift of Charles, but of the Pope. His old 
convent of Stein began to covet the fame of the great scholar 
whom they had permitted to leave their walls. His friend 
Servatius had become prior, and endeavoured to induce Erasmus 
to join again the brotherhood from which he had departed. 
The answer of Erasmus is among the most remarkable of his 
letters ; free, full, fearless on the degeneracy of the monastic 
life, of which he acknowledges the use and excellence in former 
times, but of which he exposes in the most uncompromising 
language the almost universal abuses. ' What is more corrupt 
and more wicked than these relaxed religions ? Consider even 
those which are in the best esteem, and you shall find in them 
nothing that resembles Christianity, but only I know not what 
cold and Judaical observances. Upon this the religious Orders 
value themselves, and by this they judge and despise others. 
Would it not be better, according to the doctrines of our 
Saviour, to look upon Christendom as one house, one family, 
one monastery, and all Christians as one brotherhood ? Would 
it not be better to account the Sacrament of Baptism the most 
sacred of all vows and engagements, and never trouble ourselves 
where we live so we live well?' 2 For the six or seven follow- 
ing busy years Erasmus himself might seem to care little where 
he lived; and, if indefatigable industry, if to devote transcendent 
abilities to letters, and above all to religious letters, be to live 



2 Jortin's Translation, p. 61. 



Essay II.J 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



107 



well, he might look back to those years of his life as the best 
spent, and, notwithstanding some drawbacks, some difficulties 
from the precariousness of his income, much suffering from a 
distressing malady, which enforced a peculiar diet and great 
care, as the happiest. 

But no doubt the frequent change of residence during this 
period of the life of Erasmus arose out of his vocation. Books 
and manuscripts were scattered in many places : if he would 
consult them, far more if he would commit the works of 
ancient authors to the press, he must search into the treasures 
of various libraries, most of them in disorder, and very few 
with catalogues. The printers, too, who would undertake, and 
to whom could be entrusted, the care of printing and correcting 
voluminous works in the ancient languages, were rare to be 
found. The long residence of Erasmus at Basil was because 
he there enjoyed not only the courtesy of the bishop and 
clergy and many learned men, but because the intelligent and 
friendly printer Frobenius was boldly engaged in the most 
comprehensive literary enterprises. 3 He had, of course, no 
domestic ties; in fact, no country. His birth precluded any 
claim of kindred ; his brother, if he had a brother, was dead ; 
his family had from the first repudiated him. After his death 
Eotterdam might take pride in her illustrious son, and adorn 
her market-place with his statue ; but it never had been and 
never was his dwelling-place. Once free, and now released by 
Papal authority from his vows of seclusion in the monastery of 
his Order, he would not submit to the irksome imprisonment 
of a cloister. He had refused all preferment which bound him 
to residence ; his home was wherever there were books, literary 
friends, and printers. He was, in truth, a citizen of the world ; 

3 This was the motive which led him so often to meditate a retreat to Rome. 
1 Decretum erat hyemare Romse, cum aliis de causis, turn ut locis nonnullis Pon- 
tificiae bibliothecse prsesidiis uterer. Apud nos Sacrorum Voluminum Grrsecorum 
magna penuria. Nam Aldina officina nobis prseter profanos auctores adhue non 
ita multum dedit. Romse, ubi bonis studiis non solum tranquillitas verum etiam 
honos.' — Epist. dxlvii. 

In other letters he expresses his determination to live and die in England. 



jOg LIFE OF EEASMUS. [Essay II. 

and the world welcomed him wherever he chose for a time to 
establish himself, in any realm or in any city. It was the pride 
of the richest or most famous capital in Europe to be chosen 
even as the temporary residence of Erasmus. 

Up to the year 1520 (the fifty-fourth of his life) Erasmus 
thus stood before the world, acknowledged and honoured as 
the greatest scholar, in a certain sense as the greatest theo- 
logian, not only on this side of the Alps, but fairly competing 
with or surpassing the greatest in Italy. Eeuchlin, now 
famous for his victory, extorted even in Eome herself from his 
stupid and bigoted persecutors, was chiefly strong in Hebrew 
and Oriental learning— knowledge more wondered at than 
admired; and to which Erasmus, as we have said, made no 
pretension. 4 Budasus alone (in Paris) was his superior in 
Greek, and in his own province of more profound erudition, 
but that province was narrow and limited. Some of the 
Italian scholars, Sadolet and Bembo and Longolius, might 
surpass him in the elegance and purity of their Latinity ; but 
he was hereafter to give a severe shock to these purists in his 
< Ciceronianus,' and had already shown himself at least their 
equal, if not their master, in his full command of a vigorous, 
idiomatic, if less accurate style. In his wit and pungent satire 
he stood almost alone ; he was rivalled only by the inimitable 
'Epistohe Obscurorum Virorum' and the 'Julius Exclusus,' 
which in its lofty and biting sarcasm, its majestic rebuke and 
terrible invective, soars above anything in the more playful 
and genial < Colloquies.' Of the authorship of both of these, 
indeed, Erasmus, notwithstanding his reiterated protestations, 

* Erasmus is accused of doing scanty honour to Reuchlin, of having timidly 
stood aloof from the contest with Pfefferkorn and the Cologne Divines. One of 
the Letters (Obscurorum Virorum) rather taunts him with this, ' Erasmus est homo 
pro se' But Erasmus could not, from his acknowledged ignorance of Hebrew, 
mingle in the strife with any authority. ' He was not only ignorant,' he writes 
himself < but he had no interest in the dispute.' ' Cabala et Talmud qmcquid hoc 
est mihi nunquam arrisit.'-Epist. Albert, Mogunt. But he made ample compen- 
sation after Reuchlin s death by his Apotheosis. Reuchlin is received into heaven, 
placed by the side of St. Jerome, and duly installed as the patron Saint of Philo- 
logists-' sancta anima ! sis felix linguarum cultoribus, faveto lmguis Sanctis, 
perdito malas linguas, infectas veneno Gehennae.' 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 



109 



could hardly escape the honours and the- perils. But the 
c Praise of Folly,' and the 6 Colloquies,' 5 in which the surprised 
and staggered Monks hardly had discovered, what they after- 
wards denounced as the impiety, even the atheism, ran like 
wildfire through Europe. They were in every house, every 
academy, every school, we suspect in almost every cloister. 
The first indignant remonstrances of the Ecclesiastical censure 
only acted, as in our days, as an advertisement. On the intelli- 
gence of their proscription, a bold printer in Paris is said to have 
struck off above 20,000 copies of the ' Colloquies,' thus imply- 
ing a demand for which the publishers of Scott, and almost of 
Macaulay, might hesitate to provide, in our days of universal 
reading. It is difficult, indeed, for us to comprehend the 
fame, the influence, the power, which in those times gathered 
around the name of a scholar, a writer in Latin. Thus far he 
had ridden triumphant through all his difficulties, and sur- 
mounted all obstacles. He was the object, no doubt, of much 
suspicion, much jealousy, but still more of fear. There had been 
many attacks upon him, especially on his Theological works, 
but they had not commanded the public ear ; he had rejoined 
with dauntless and untiring energy, and in general carried the 
learned with him. Through him Scholasticism was fast waning 
and giving place to polite letters, to humanities as they were 
called: the cloisters, and more orthodox Universities, might 
seem almost paralyzed ; it might appear as if the world — we 
might certainly say it of England — was Erasmian. 

There was one other name, indeed, destined shortly to tran- 
scend, in some degree to obscure, that of Erasmus. But as yet 
men had only begun to wonder and stand appalled at the name 
of Luther. It had not yet concentered on itself the passionate 
indelible attachment of his countless followers, nor the pro- 
fessed implacable animosity of his more countless foes. Luther 
had denounced Tetzel and his Indulgences; he had affixed 

5 The Colloquies were first printed by Erasmus in 1522, but there had been two 
imperfect and surreptitious editions in 1518, 151^, which compelled Erasmus to 
publish a more accurate and complete copy. 



-QO LIFE OF EEASMUS. [Essay II. 

to the walls his famous Theses; he had held his disputations 
with Eck at Leipsic : but it was not till this year that the 
declaration of war startled Christendom— the issuing of the 
Papal Bull against Luther, the burning the Bull in the streets 
of Wittenberg. 

Nothing can show more fully the position held up to this 
time in Europe by Erasmus, than that all the great Potentates 
of the Christian world had vied, or might seem to be vying, 
for the honour of his residence in their dominions. Even in 
their strife for the empire, Charles V. and Francis might appear 
to find time for this competition. Men of letters are often 
reproached with adulation to men of high rank and station ; it 
. is more often that men of letters are objects of flattery by great 
men. Erasmus has been charged, perhaps not altogether with- 
out justice, with this kind of adulation ; but we ought in fair- 
ness to take into consideration his poverty, his dependence for 
subsistence and for the means of promoting his studies, the 
usages of the time, and the language with which it was almost 
thelaw to address princes, prelates, and sovereigns, as may be 
seen even in Luther's language to the Elector of Saxony, to 
the Archbishop of Mentz, to the Emperor and the Pope. If 
Erasmus flattered, he received ample returns in the same coin : 
he was called the light of the world, the glory of Christendom, 
and other such titles. We have seen that he was tempted 
from England to the Court of Brussels by encouragement from 
Charles when Archduke of Austria. As Emperor, Charles by 
no means cast off the illustrious scholar whom he had favoured 
as Archduke. Erasmus ventured after the battle to Pavia, to 
urge the Emperor, flushed as he was with his victory, to 
generous and magnanimous treatment of his captive. Before 
this Francis I., through Budgeus, and with the sanction of 
Stephen Poncher, Bishop of Paris, had endeavoured to secure 
him for his rising University of Paris. From time to time 
these invitations were renewed : Paris, notwithstanding the 
hostility of the Sorbonne, was jealous of his preference of 
Germany. Henry VIII. had allowed him to depart from 



Essay II. J 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



Ill 



England with reluctance, and would have welcomed him back 
on almost any terms. The Emperor's brother, the Archduke 
Ferdinand, paid him the highest court. The Elector of 
Bavaria made him splendid offers to undertake the Presidency 
of the University of Ingolstadt. There may be some osten- 
tation in the Epistle of Erasmus, in which he recounts the 
intimate footing on which he stood with all the Sovereigns of 
Europe; the letters, the magnificent presents which he had 
received from princes, from prelates, and from sovereigns : 6 

From the Emperor Charles I have many letters, written in a tone 
of as much affection as esteem (tarn honorifice tarn amanter), that I 
prize them even more than his kindness to me, to which nevertheless I 
owe great part of my fortune. From King Ferdinand I have as many, 
not less friendly, and never without some honorary gift. How often 
have I been invited, and on what liberal terms, by the King of France ! 
The King of England by frequent letters and unsolicited presents is 
always declaring his favour and singular goodwill. The best of women 
in this age, his Queen Catherine, vies in this respect with the King her 
husband. 7 Sigismund, the King of Poland, sent me a letter with a gift 
of truly royal value. The Duke of Saxony often addresses letters to 
me, never without a present — uvk adupog kuI avroq. 

Then follows a list of prelates, including the Archbishops of 
Canterbury, Mentz, and Toledo, Tunstall of Durham, Sadolet 
of Carpentras, the Bishops of Breslau and Olmutz. Pope Leo 
in one way gave him important countenance. Whether it 
was that the polite Italian retained some covert scorn for the 
barbarous Transalpine scholar, or that he was immersed in his 
business, his fine arts, and his luxury, he had failed to realise 
the sanguine hopes of favour towards Erasmus, whom he had 
encouraged when Cardinal de' Medici. Nevertheless he accepted 
the dedication of Erasmus's New Testament, a privilege of 
inestimable value, as a shield behind which the editor re- 
treated from all the perilous and jealous charges of heterodoxy, 
which were showered upon him by the Lees, the Stunicas, the 
Caranzas, the Hoogstratens, the Egmonts, and from more 

6 Epist. 1132. 

7 Queen Catherine was a great reader of Erasmus ; he dedicated to her his 
tract De Matrimonio. 



112 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. 



bio-oted and dangerous adversaries, who, trembling at the 
publication of the New Testament itself, would have suppressed 
its circulation by calling in question its accuracy and fidelity. 
Pope Adrian had been the schoolfellow of Erasmus at Deventer ; 
how far the timid and cold old man would have had the 
courage to befriend him, was scarcely tried during the few 
months of his pontificate. Adrian indeed offered him a 
deanery, which he declined; but the pontiff was supposed not 
to take in good part a letter, 8 in which Erasmus, most highly 
to his credit, urged toleration to the followers of Luther, and 
a wide and spontaneous reformation of the Church. Clement 
VII sent him a present of 200 florins, and made him more 
splendid promises. Paul III. (but this was after his writing 
against Luther, and after he had been harassed and frightened, 
and lured into a timid conservatism) had serious thoughts of 
promoting him to the Cardinalate. He offered him the 
Provostship of Deventer, worth 600 florins a-year. 

Had Erasmus departed from the world at this time, it had 
been happier perhaps for himself, happier, no doubt, for his 
fame. The world might have lost some of his valuable publica- 
tions, but it might have been spared some, which certainly add 
nothing to his glory. His character, in spite of infirmities, 
would have been well-nigh blameless. Though not himself, 
strictly speaking, to have been enrolled in the noble and martyr 
band of the assertors of religious freedom and evangelical 
religion, he would have been honoured as the most illustrious 
of their precursors and prophets, as having done more than any 
one to break the bonds of scholasticism, superstition, ignorance, 
and sacerdotal tyranny, to restore the Scriptures to their 
supremacy, and to advance that great work of Christian civiliza- 
tion, the Keformation. 

How then had Erasmus achieved his lofty position ? What 
were the writings on which Christendom looked with such un- 

• In the same letter Erasmus urges restrictions on the Press, by which as 
Jortin justly observes, he would have been the first to suffer ; but he had been 
sorely pelted by personal and malicious libels. 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 



113 



bounded admiration? which made princes and kings, and 
prelates and universities, rivals for the honour of patronising 
him ? If we can answer this question, we shall ascertain to a 
great extent the claims of Erasmus to the honour and gratitude 
of later times. Erasmus may be considered from four different 
points of view, yet all his transcendent qualities, so seen, may 
seem to converge and conspire to one common end : I. As the 
chief promoter of polite studies and of classical learning on this 
side of the Alps. II. As the declared enemy of the dominant 
scholasticism and of the superstitions of the Middle Ages, 
which he exposed to the scorn and ridicule of the world both 
in his serious and in his satirical writings. III. As the parent 
of biblical criticism, and of a more rational interpretation of 
the sacred writings, by his publication of the New Testament, 
and by his Notes and Paraphrases. IV. As the founder of a more 
learned and comprehensive theology, by his editions of the early 
Fathers of the Church. In each of these separate departments, 
the works of Erasmus might seem alone sufficient to occupy 
a long and laborious life; and to these must be added the 
perpetual controversies, which he was compelled to wage ; the 
defensive warfare in which he was involved by almost every 
important publication; his letters, which fill a folio volume 
and a half of his Works, and his treatises on many subjects all 
bearing some relation to the advancement of letters or of 
religion. 

I. Consider Erasmus as one of those to whom the world 
is mainly indebted for the revival of classical learning. Here 
we may almost content ourselves with rapidly recounting his 
translations and his editions of the great authors of antiquity. 9 
Nor shall we confine ourselves strictly to those which he 
published before 1520, as it is our object to give a complete 
view of his literary labours. His Translations from the Greek 
were made for the avowed purpose of perfecting his knowledge 

9 The list of his writings to a certain period is given in a letter to Botzemius. 
The bibliography of the works of Erasmus is elaborately wrought out at the end 
of the article in Ersch and Grruber. 

I 



-Q4 LIFE OE ERASMUS. [Essay II. 

of that language : they comprehend several plays of Euripides, 
some orations of Libanius, almost the whole of Lucian, most 
of the moral works of Plutarch. His editions, besides some 
smaller volumes, were of Seneca the Philosopher, Suetonius, 
with the Augustan and other minor historians, Q. Curtius, the 
Offices and Tusculan Disputations of Cicero, the great work of 
Pliny; at a later period, Livy, Terence with the Commentary 
of Donatus, the works of Aristotle and of Demosthenes. These 
editions have indeed given place to the more critical and accu- 
rate labours of later scholars, but they are never mentioned by 
them without respect and thankfulness. If we duly estimate 
the labour of reading and, even with the best aid, carrying 
through the press such voluminous works, without the modern 
appliances of lexicons, indices, commentaries, and annotations, 
the sturdiest G-erman scholar of our day might quail beneath 
the burthen. Erasmus composed some valuable elementary 
and grammatical works, chiefly for Dean Colet's school ; but 
perhaps among his dissertations that one which exhibits the 
scholar in the most striking and peculiar light, is his < Cice- 
ronianus,' a later work. This too prolix dialogue is a bold 
revolt against the Italian scholars, who proscribed in modern 
Latin every word which had not the authority of Cicero. There 
is some good broad fun in the Ciceronian, who for seven years 
had read no book but Cicero, had only Cicero's bust in his 
library, sealed his letters with Cicero's head. He had three or 
four huge volumes, each big enough to overload two porters, in 
which he had digested every word of Cicero, every variation of 
every sense of every word, every foot or cadence with which 
Cicero began or closed a sentence or clause of a sentence. 
Erasmus not only laughed at but argued with force against this 
pedantry. The perfection of Latin would be to speak as Cicero 
would have spoken had he lived in the present day. He dwells 
on the incompatibility of Ciceronian Latin with Christian ideas 
and terminology ; describes with humour the strange paganiza- 
tion of Christian notions which the Italians had introduced. It 
nev er occurred to Erasmus that Christianity would outgrow the 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



115 



Latin language, and have its own poets, orators, historians, in 
Christian languages. The close is very curious as bearing on 
the literary history of the time. It is a long criticism, which of 
course gave much offence, of all the Latin authors of the day 
throughout Europe, of their writings, and of their style ; and as 
almost everybody wrote in Latin it is a full survey of the men 
of letters of his age. Alas ! how many sonorous names, termi- 
nating in the imposing and all-honoured ' us,' have perished from 
the memory of man, a few perhaps undeservedly, most of them 
utterly and for ever! Longolius was the only Barbarian 
admitted to the privilege of Ciceronianism. The tract closes 
with a ludicrous account of the reception of a civis Eomanus, 
by a club or society of Ciceronians at Eome. 

But the work which displayed to the utmost the unbounded 
erudition of Erasmus was his 6 Adagia.' The clever definition 
of a proverb, erroneously attributed to a statesman of our day, 
6 the wisdom of many and the wit of one,' does not answer to 
the 6 Adagia ' of Erasmus. This book is a master-key to all 
the strange and recondite sayings scattered about in the classic 
writers, and traces them to their origin. They are arranged 
under different heads, in alphabetical order, as 6 absurdities,' 
6 arrogance,' 6 avarice.' Sometimes he takes one of these sayings 
for the text of a long dissertation. The 'Adagia' is thus a 
rich and very curious storehouse of his opinions. On e Festina 
Lente,' he discusses the whole question of printing and the abuses 
of the Press ; on 6 Simulation and Dissimulation,' the Church, 
the wealth and pomp of the clergy ; on 6 Monacho Indoctior,' 
he brands the ignorance and immorality of the monks ; on 
'Dulce Bellum Inexpertis,' the folly and wickedness of war. 
Nothing displays in a more wonderful degree the vast, multi- 
farious, and profound erudition of Erasmus than this work. 
Even in the present day, with all our subsidiary aids to learn- 
ing, the copiousness, variety, and extent of his reading move 
our astonishment. Not the most obscure writer seems to have 
escaped his curiosity. In the first edition he complained of 
the want of Greek books, in the later the Greeks of every age 

i 2 



HQ LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. 

are familiarly cited ; the Latin are entirely at his command. 
Some proverbs were added by later writers ; some of his conjec- 
tural interpretations of abstruse sayings have been corrected, but 
with all its defects it remains a monument of very marvellous 
industry. The reception of this work displays no less the 
passion for that kind of learning, and the homage paid in all 
quarters to its author. The first edition, avowedly imperfect, 
was printed at Paris in 1500. It was followed by two at 
Strasburg ; it was reprinted by Erasmus himself, in a more 
full and complete form at Venice, in 1508. This edition was 
imitated, without the knowledge of Erasmus, by Frobenius, 
afterwards his dear friend, at Basil. Seven editions followed 
with great rapidity, bearing the fame of the author to every 
part of Christendom, which was now eager for the cultivation 
of classical learning. 

II. Erasmus was no less the declared opponent, and took 
great part in the discomfiture of scholasticism, and of the 
superstitions of the middle ages. 

At length Erasmus, that great injured name 
(The glory of the priesthood and the shame), 
Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age, 
And drove those holy Vandals off the stage. 

Pope's 6 wild torrent ' is not a very happy illustration of the 
scholasticism which had so long oppressed the teaching of 
Europe— ' a stagnant morass' or an 4 impenetrable jungle ' had 
been a more apt similitude. Few, however, did more to 
emancipate the human mind from the Thomism and the 
Scotism, the pseudo-Aristotelism, which ruled and wrangled in 
all the schools of Europe. Erasmus fell in, in this respect, with 
the impatience and the ardent aspirations of all who yearned 
for better days. In Italy the yoke was already broken : the 
monks, especially on this side of the Alps, fought hard in their 
cloistral schools and in the universities, in which they had still 
the supremacy. But the new universities, the schools founded 
especially in England out of the monasteries suppressed by 



Essay II.] LIFE OF EEASMUS. 117 

Wolsey, or out of ecclesiastical wealth, as by Bishop Fox, or 
by Colet, who hated scholasticism as bitterly as Erasmus, were 
open to the full light of the new teaching. Erasmus served 
the good cause in two ways ; by exposing its barrenness and 
uselessness in his serious as well as in his satirical writings, and 
by supplying the want of more simple, intelligible, and profit- 
able manuals of education. Against the superstitions of the 
age, the earlier writings of Erasmus are a constant grave or 
comic protest, though he was not himself always superior to 
such weaknesses. In his younger days he had attributed his 
recovery from a dangerous illness to the intercession of St. 
Genoveva, to whom he addressed an ode. The saint, it is true, 
was aided by William Cope, the most skilful physician in 
Paris. When at Cambridge he made a pilgrimage — it may 
have been from curiosity rather than faith — to our Lady at 
Walsingham. But his later and more mature opinions he 
either cared not, or was unable, to disguise. The monks, the 
authors and supporters of these frauds, are not the objects of 
his wit alone, but of his solemn, deliberate invective. Severe 
argument, however, and bitter, serious satire had been heard 
before, and fallen on comparatively unheeding ears ; it was the 
lighter and more playful wit of Erasmus which threw even the 
most jealous off their guard, and enabled him to say things 
with impunity which in graver form had awakened fierce 
indignation. Even the sternest bigots, if they scented the 
danger, did not venture to proscribe the works which all 
Christendom, as yet unfrightened, received with unchecked and 
unsuspecting mirth. Let the solemn protest as they will, there 
are truths of which ridicule is the Lydian stone. The laughter 
of fools may be folly, but the laughter of wise men is often the 
highest wisdom. Perhaps no satire was ever received with 
more universal applause, in its day, than the < Praise of Folly.' 
Let us remember that it was finished in the house of More, and 
dedicated to one who was hereafter to lay down his life for the 
Eoman faith. To us, habituated to rich English humour and 
fine French wit, it may be difficult to do justice to the 'Moria? 



118 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 



[Essay II. 



Encomium;' but we must bear in mind that much of the 
classical allusion, which to us is trite and pedantic, was then 
fresh and original. The inartificialness and, indeed, the incon- 
sistency of the structure of the satire might almost pass for 
consummate art. Folly, who at first seems indulging in playful 
and inoffensive pleasantry, while she attributes to her followers 
all the enjoyments of life, unknown to the moroser wise, might 
even, without exciting suspicion, laugh at the more excessive 
and manifest superstitions — the worship of St. Christopher and 
St. George, St. Erasmus and St. Hippolytus ; at indulgences ; 
at those who calculated nicely the number of years, months, 
hours of purgatory ; those who would wipe off a whole life of 
sin by a small coin, or who attributed magic powers to the 
recitation of a few verses of the Psalms. But that which so far 
is light, if somewhat biting, wit, becomes on a sudden a fierce 
and bitter irony, sometimes anticipating the savage misan- 
thropy of Swift, but reserving its most merciless and incisive 
lashes for kings, for the clergy, for the cardinals and the popes. 
Folly, from a pleasant, comic merry-andrew, raising a laugh at 
the absurdities of the age, is become a serious, solemn, Juven- 
alian satirist, lashing their vices with the thrice-knotted scourge, 
drawing blood at every stroke, and, as it were, mocking at its 
prostrate victims. And yet of this work twenty-seven editions 
were published during the lifetime of the author, and it was 
translated into many of the languages of Europe. The 
' Colloquies' were neither less bold nor less popular ; they were 
in every library, almost in every school. We have alluded to 
the edition of above 20,000 copies said to have been struck off 
by one adventurous printer ; and yet in these 6 Colloquies ' 
there was scarcely a superstition which was not mocked at, we 
say not with covert, but with open scorn ; and this with a 
freedom which in more serious men, men of lower position in 
the world of letters, would have raised an instant alarm of 
deadly heresy, and might have led the hapless author to the 
stake. 

In the ' Shipwreck,' while most of the passengers are raising 



Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 119 

wild cries, some to one saint, some to another, there is a single 
calm person, evidently shown as the one true Christian, who 
addresses his prayers to Gk)d himself, as the only deliverer. 
In the < Ichthyophagia,' the eating of fish, there is a scrupulous 
penitent, whom nothing, not even the advice of his physician, 
will induce to break his vow, and eat meat or eggs, but who 
has not the least difficulty in staving off the payment of a debt 
by perjury. In the < Inquisition concerning Faith ' there is a 
distinct assertion, that belief in the Apostles' Creed (which 
many at Rome do not believe) is all-sufficient; that against such 
a man even the Papal anathema is an idle thunder, even should 
he eat more than fish on a Friday. < The Funeral ' contrasts 
the deathbed and the obsequies of two men. One is a soldier, 
who has acquired great wealth by lawless means. He summons 
all the five Orders of mendicants, as well as the parish priest, 
to his dying bed. There is a regular battle for him : the 
parish priest retires with a small share of the spoil, as also do 
three of the mendicant Orders. Two remain behind : the man 
dies, and is magnificently buried in the church in the weeds of 
a Franciscan ; having forced his wife and children to take re- 
ligious vows, and bequeathing the whole of his vast wealth to 
the Order. The other dies simply, calmly, in humble reliance 
on hisEedeemer: makes liberal gifts to the poor, but bequeaths 
them nothing ; leaves not a farthing to any one of the Orders; 
receives extreme unction and the Eucharist without confession, 
having nothing on his conscience, and is buried without the 
least ostentation. Which model Erasmus would hold up as 
that of the true Christian, cannot be doubted. In 'The 
Pilgrimage ' not only is pilgrimage itself held up to ridicule, 
but reliques also, and even the worship of the Virgin. In the 
letter, which, by a fiction not without frequent precedent, he 
ascribes to the blessed ' Deipara,' there is a strange sentence, 
in which the opinion of Luther, denying all worship of the 
saints, is slily approved of, as relieving her from a great many 
importunities and troublesome supplications. The < Franciscan 
Obsequies' is perhaps the finest and most subtle in its satire, 



120 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



[Essay II. 



which, while it openly dwells only on those who, to be sure of 
Paradise, 

Dying, put on the weeds of Dominic, 
Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised, 

in its covert sarcasm, was an exposure of the whole history of 
the Order, and, with somewhat contemptuous respect for the 
holy founder, scoffs even at the Stigmata, and lashes the avarice 
and wealth of this most beggarly of the begging fraternities. 
He thus galled to the quick this powerful brotherhood, who 
had provoked him by their obstinate ignorance, and became 
still more and more his inveterate and implacable foe. We 
could fill pages from his various writings of denunciations 
against these same enemies of sound learning and true religion. 

III. Erasmus was the parent of biblical criticism. His 
edition of the New Testament first opened to the West the 
Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul in the original Greek. Pre- 
paration had been made for the famous Complutensian Edition, 
but it had not yet appeared to the world. For its age, in 
critical sagacity, in accuracy, in fidelity, in the labour of com- 
paring scattered and yet unexplored manuscripts, the New 
Testament of Erasmus was a wonderful work : the best and 
latest of our biblical scholars — Tischendorf, Lachmann,Tregelles 
— do justice to the bold and industrious pioneer who first 
opened the invaluable mines of biblical wealth. 

It was no common courage or honesty which would presume 
to call in question the impeccable integrity, the infallible 
authority, of the Vulgate, which had ruled with uncontested 
sway the Western mind for centuries, to appeal to a more 
ancient and more venerable, as well as more trustworthy, canon 
of the faith. To dare in those days to throw doubt on the 
authenticity of such a text as that of the 'Three Heavenly 
Witnesses/ implied fearless candour, as rare as admirable. 
Such a publication was looked upon, of course, with awe, sus- 
picion, jealousy. Some with learning, some, like Lee, with 
pretensions to learning, fell upon it with rabid violence ; but 
Erasmus had been so wise, or so fortunate, as to be able to 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 



121 



place the name of the Pope, and that Pope Leo X., on the 
front of his work; and under that protecting aegis fought 
manfully, and with no want of controversial bitterness on his 
side, against his bigoted antagonists. The names of these 
adversaries have sunk into obscurity, though Lee became 
Archbishop of York, and was, according to his epitaph — we 
fear his sole testimony — a good and generous man. 1 But to 
the latest times theological learning acknowledges the inesti- 
mable debt of gratitude which it owes to Erasmus. 

But it was not only as editor, it was as interpreter also, of 
the New Testament that Erasmus was a benefactor to the 
world. In his Notes, and, in his invaluable Paraphrases, he 
opened the sense, as well as the letter, of the long-secluded, if 
not long-sealed, volume of the New Testament. He was the 
parent also of the sound, and simple, and historical exposition 
of the sacred writings. He struck boldly down through the 
layers of mystic, allegoric, scholastic, traditional lore, which 
had been accumulating for ages over the holy volume, and laid 
open the vein of pure gold — the plain, obvious, literal meaning 
of the Apostolic writings. Suffice it for us to say, that Erasmus 
is, in a certain sense, or rather was in his day, to the Church 
of England the recognised and authenticated expositor of the 
New Testament. The Translation of the Paraphrases, it is well 
known, was ordered to be placed in all our churches with the 
vernacular Scriptures. Nor was there anything of the jealousy 
or exclusiveness of the proud scholar in Erasmus. His biblical 
studies and labours were directed to the general diffusion, and 
to the universal acceptance of the Scriptures as the rule of Faith. 
Neither Luther nor the English Eeformers expressed themselves- 
more strongly or emphatically on this subject than Erasmus 

1 Compare More's letters to Lee upon his attack on Erasmus. More had known 
Lee's family, and Lee himself in his youth ; but he scrupled not to castigate the 
presumption of Lee in measuring himself against the great Scholar. In the last 
letter, after alluding to Pope Leo's approbation of the New Testament, he adds, 
' Quod ex arce religionis summus ille Christiani orbis princeps suo testimonio 
cohonestat, id tu Monachulus et indoctus et obscurus ex antro cellulse tuse 
putulenta lingua conspurcas.' — Jortin, Appendix, ii. p. C89. 



122 LIFE OP ERASMUS. [Essay II. 

e the sun itself should not be more common than Christ's 

doctrines.' 

I altogether and utterly dissent from those who are unwilling that 
the Holy Scriptures, translated into the vulgar tongue, should be read 
by private persons (idiotis), as though the teachings of Christ were so 
abstruse as to be intelligible only to a very few theologians, or as 
though the safety of the Scripture rested on man's ignorance of it. It 
may be well to conceal the mysteries of kings ; but Christ willed that 
his mysteries should be published as widely as possible. I should wish 
that simple women (mulierculas) should read the Gospels, should read 
the Epistles of St. Paul. Would that the Scripture were translated 
into all languages, that it might be read and known, not only by Scots 
and Irishmen, but even by Turks and Saracens.— (Paraclesis in Nov. 
Testamentum.) 

IV. If the amazement was great with which we surveyed the 
labours of Erasmus as editor of the classical authors, as com- 
pared with those of the most industrious of scholars in our 
degenerate days, what is it when we add his editions of the 
early Fathers ? It is enough to recite only the names of these 
publications, and to bear in mind the number and the size of 
their massy and close-printed folios, some of them filled to the 
very margin. They were— St Jerome, his first and favourite 
author ; Cyprian ; the pseudo-Arnobius ; Hilary, to which was 
affixed a preface of great learning, which excited strong ani- 
madversion ; Irenseus, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine ; some works 
of Epiphanius, Lactantius ; some treatises of St. Athanasius, 
St. Chrysostom, and others ; St. Chrysostom, St. Basil (not the 
complete works). At his death Erasmus had advanced far in the 
preparation for the press of the whole works of Origen. 

But in the fatal year of 1520-21 the awful disruption was 
inevitable: from the smouldering embers of the Papal Bull 
burned at Wittemberg, arose the Eeformation. The great 
Teutonic revolt, which at that time seemed likely to draw with 
it even some nations of Latin descent, France, with Italy and 
Spain, was now inevitable; the irreconcilable estrangement 
between the two realms of Western Christendom was to become 
antagonism, hostility, war. On which side was Erasmus, on 



EssAY ii.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 123 

which side was the vast Erasmian party to be found— that 
multitude of all orders, especially of the more enlightened, 
whose allegiance to the established order of things, to Papal 
despotism, to scholasticism, to monkery, to medieval super- 
stition, had been shaken by his serious protestations, by his 
satires, by his biblical studies? Both parties acknowledged 
his invaluable importance by their strenuous efforts to enrol 
him among their followers ; both used every means of flattery 
—one of bribery— of persuasion, of menace, of compulsion, 
to compass the invaluable proselyte. Could he maintain a 
stately neutrality? approve each party so far as it seemed 
right, condemn it where it seemed wrong ? Could he offer a 
friendly mediation, soften off the fierce asperities, mitigate the 
violence of the collision ? Alas I such days were passed. Those 
terrible texts, 'Who is on the Lord's side, who?' ' Cursed be 
he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully,' were become 
the battle words on either banner. On the application of that 
other text, ' Thou canst not serve Christ and Belial,' there was 
perfect agreement ; the two parties only differed as to which 
cause was Christ's, which Belial's. There was no escape from 
the conscription, exercised with as little scruple or mercy on 
one side as the other ; he must take up arms ; he must provoke 
fierce unforgiving hostility ; he must break ties of friendship ; 
he must embrace a cause, while he was firmly convinced that 
neither cause had full justice on its side— that, according to 
his views, there were errors, faults, sins on both, that neither 
was in possession of the full, sincere, unalloyed truth. And 
this terrible alternative was forced upon Erasmus in the decline 
of life, when the mind usually, especially a mind vigorously 
exercised, yearns for repose ; and when a constitution naturally 
feeble had been tried by a painful, wasting, in those days irre- 
mediable, malady. The man of books, who had thought to 
devote the rest of his days to his books, must be dragged forth, 
like a gladiator, to exhibit his powers, himself with no hearty 
interest on either side. It is true that he had been involved 
in much controversy, and was not wanting in the gall of con- 



124 



LIFE OF EKASMUS. 



[Essay II. 



troversy — but it had been in self-defence ; his was personal 
resentment for personal attacks. He had not spared the Lees 
and the Stunicas, or the Louvain divines, who had set upon 
him with malignant rancour — rancour which he retorted with- 
out measure and without scruple. 

The Utopian vision of Erasmus, no doubt, had been a peace- 
ful Eeformation. He had fondly hoped that the progress of 
polite letters would soften and enlighten the general mind ; 
that the superstitions of the Middle Ages would gradually be 
exploded by the diffusion of knowledge ; that biblical studies 
would of themselves promote a pure and simpler religion ; that 
obstinate monkhood would shrink into its proper sphere, the 
monasteries become retreats for literary leisure. He had ima- 
gined that Leo X., the patron of arts, letters, and whose reign 
of peace had not yet yielded to the inextinguishable Medicean 
passion for political intrigue, whose golden age had not yet 
become an age of brass, an age of fierce and bloody warfare, 
would be the great reformer of Christendom. 2 One of his 
bitterest complaints of the progress of Lutheranism was its 
fatal influence on the cultivation of polite letters. 6 They are 
weighing down polite letters by the jealousy which they are 
exciting against them. What has the cause of letters to do 
with Eeuchlin and Luther, but they are artfully mingled to- 
gether by man's jealousy, that both may be oppressed.' 3 

Up to this time he had stood well with the heads of both 
parties. The Pope (Leo X.), the Cardinals, the most distin- 
guished prelates, still treated him with honour and respect. 
His enemies — those who cared not to disguise their suspicions, 
their jealousies, their animosities — who assailed him as a covert, 
if not an open heretic, who called for the proscription of his 

2 Eead the splendid passage in the Adagia, where he contrasts the Italy and 
Kome of Leo with Italy and Home under Julius II., under the title, « Dulce Bellum 
Inexpertis.' 

3 ' Bonas literas degravarunt invidia.' — Epist. ad Bilibald. • Quid rei bonis studiis 
cum fidei negotio? Deinde quid mihi cum causa Capnionis et Lutheri? Sed 
hsec arte commiscuerunt, ut communi invidia gravarent omnes bonarum literarum 
cultores. — Alberto, Episc. Mogwit.' 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



125 



books, who branded him as an Arian, a profane scoffer — were 
men of a lower class, some manifestly eager to make themselves 
a fame for orthodoxy by detecting his latent heterodoxy, some 
moved by sheer bigotry, into which the general mind had not 
been frightened back ; monks and friars who were still obsti- 
nate Thomists or Scotists. The pnlpits were chiefly filled by 
Dominicans and Carmelites ; and from the pulpits there was a 
continual thunder of denunciation, imprecation, anathematisa- 
tion of Erasmus. 4 

Of Luther he had hitherto spoken, if with cautious reserve 
(he professed not to have read his writings, and had no 
personal knowledge of him), yet with respect of his motives 
and of his character. Of him Luther still wrote with defer- 
ence for the universal scholar, of respect for the man. In 
Luther's letters up to 1520 there are many phrases of honour, 
esteem, almost of friendship, hardly one even of mistrust or 
suspicion. 

Even after this time Erasmus ventured more than once on 
the perilous office of mediation. In his famous letter to the 
Archbishop of Mentz, which was published by the Lutherans 
before his signature had been affixed to it, there were sentences 
which made them rashly conclude that he was entirely on 
their side. 5 In a letter to Wolsey he asserted the truth of 
many of Luther's opinions, and deprecated the unyielding 
severity with which they had been proscribed at Rome. 6 But 
the most full, distinct, and manly avowal of his opinions is 
comprised in a letter addressed to Cardinal Campegius. It 
contains some remarkable admissions : — 

He had himself, he said, not read twelve pages of Luther's writings, 
and those hastily, but even in that hasty reading he had discerned rare 

4 Epist. ad Campegium. 

5 De Wette, i. p. 247, 396. Where he speaks of the letter to the Archbishop of 
Mentz: ' Egregia epistola Erasmi ad Cardinalem Moguntimim, de me multum 
solicita .... ubi egregie me tutatur, ita tamen ut nihil minus qnam me tutari 
videatur, sicut solet pro dexteritate sua.' — ii. 196. He has discovered hostility in 
Erasmus, but this is in 1522. See also Melanchthon's Letter, 378. 

6 Not the less did Wolsey proceed to prohibit them in England. Erasmus even 
then protested against burning Luther's books. — Epist. 513. 



126 LIFE 01? ERASMUS. IL 

natural qualities, aud a singular faculty for discerning the intimate sense 
of Ae sacred writings. I heard excellent men of approved doctrine 
Id ied rdigion, congratulate themselves that they had met w«h his 
writes I saw hat in proportion as men were of uncorrupt morals, 
Ind Xer .pproaching'to Evangelic purity, they were less hosti e 
to Lutler; and his life was highly praised by those who could not 
endure his doctrine. 

He had endeavoured to persuade Luther to be more gentle and 
submissive, to mitigate his vehemence against the Roman 
Pontiff. He had admonished the other party to refute Luther 
by fair argument, and from the Holy Scriptures. ' Let them 
dispute with Luther; let them write against Luther. What 
had been the course pursued. A judgement of two universities 
came forth against Luther. A terrible Bull, under the name of 
the Roman Pontiff, came forth against Luther. His books 
were burned: there was a clamour among the people. The 
business could not be conducted in a more odious manner. 
Every one thought the Bull more unmerciful than was expected 
from Leo, and yet those who carried it into execution aggra- 
vated its harshness.' 

On the accession of his schoolfellow at Deventer, Adrian of 
Utrecht, to the Papal throne, Erasmus commenced a letter ur- 
ging concessions to Luther, and a gentler policy to his followers ; 
he urges the possibility, the wisdom of arresting the course of 
religious revolution by timely reform. The letter broke off 
abruptly, as if he had received a hint, or from his own sagacity 
had foreseen, how unacceptable such doctrines would be even 
to a Teutonic Pope. Still later he broke out in indignant re- 
monstrance on the burning of the two Augustinian monks at 
Brussels. On their fate, and on their beautiful Christian for- 
titude, Luther raised almost a shout of triumph, as foreseeing 
the impulse which their martyrdom would give to his cause. 
Erasmus veiled his face in profound sorrow at the sufferings of 
men so holy and blameless, and not less clearly foreboded that 
these were but the first-fruits of many and many bloody sacri- 
fices to Him whom Erasmus would have worshipped as the God 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 



127 



of mercy ; and that, as of old, the martyrs' blood would be the 
seed of the New Church. 7 

But neither, on the other hand, was he prepared, either by 
his honest and conscientious opinions, by his deliberate judge- 
ment on Christian truth, we will not say to go all lengths with 
Luther, though he could not but see their agreement on many 
vital questions, but to encourage him in disturbing the re- 
ligious peace of the world. In truth, of men embarked to a 
certain extent in a common cause, 8 no two could be conceived 
in education, temperament, habits, character, opinions, passions, 
as far as Erasmus had passions, so absolutely antagonistical ; 
and add to all this the age and infirmities of Erasmus, as 
compared with the robust vigour, and yet unexhausted power 
of Luther. 

Erasmus had a deep, settled, conscientious, religious hatred 
of war: not Penn or Barclay repudiated it more strongly or 
absolutely, as unevangelic, unchristian. He had declared these 
opinions in the teeth of the warlike Pontiff Julius. The 
triumph of truth itself, at least its immediate triumph, was not 
worth the horrors of a sanguinary war ; — he disclaimed all 
sympathy with truth which was seditious ; he had rather 
surrender some portion of truth than disturb the peace of the 
world. He feared, as he said later, if tried like Peter, he 
might fall like Peter. 9 

'Tis well that the world had men of sterner stuff — men who 
would lay down their own lives for the truth, and would not 
even shrink from the awful trial of imperilling the lives of 

7 ' Quid multis ? Ubicunque fumos excitavit Nuncius, ubicunque ssevitiam exer- 
cuit Carmelita, ibi diceres fuisse factam hsereseon sementem.' — Epist. 1163. The 
whole of this most remarkable letter, in which he describes the course of 
events, should be read. He speaks out about the still more offensive and obtrusive 
pride, pomp, and luxury of the clergy, especially of the bishops. ' It does not 
become him to speak of the Pope.' But how has Clement treated Florence ! ! 

8 1 Nam videor mihi fere omnia docuisse, quae docet Lutherus, nisi quod non 
tarn atrociter, quodque abstinui a quibusdam eenigmatibus et paradoxis.' So wrote 
Erasmus to Zuinglius. The paradoxes were no doubt the denial of Free Will, 
and the absolute sinfulness of all human works before grace, and justification by 
faith without works. 

• 9 Epist. 65-4, repeated later. 



128 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. 

others. But let us net tee severely judge these whom God had 
^ gifted with this sublimer virtue ; let us net whol y attribute 
the temporising and less rigid conduct of Erasmus to uuual 
weakness, or more justly, perhaps, to constitutional - y- 
lm less to the sordid fear of losing his favours and appointment, 
Erasmus, from his point of view, eonld not fully comprehend 
S awful question at issue,-that it was the great question of 
Christian iLrty or the perpetuation of unclmstum tyranny ; 
tha it was a question on which depended the civilisation of 
mankind, the final emancipation of one-half of the wor d from 
The sacerdotal yoke, the alleviation of that yoke even to thos 
w ho would still choose to hear it. Compare he most Papal 
If Papal countries, even in our own days of strange reac ion, 
with Papal Christendom hefore the days of Luther, and calmly 
^fe what the whole world owes to those whom no human 
considerations-not even the dread of unchristian war could 
withhold from the hold, uncompromising, patien assertion of 
Truth. Let us honour the martyrs of truth ; hut le us honour 
Ithough in a less degree-those who have laboured hy mi der 
m eans, and much less fiery trials, for the truth, even if like 
Em— they honestly confess that they want the martyrs 

"thing can more clearly show how entirely Erasmus mis- 
apprehended the depth and importance of the coming con- 
test and his own utter disqualification for taking an active 
part in it, than a fact upon which no stress has been laid. It 
was to be a Teutonic emancipation; not but that there was to 
be a vigorous struggle among the races of Latin descent for the 
same freedom. In France, in Italy, even in Spain there were 
me n who contended nobly and died boldly for the reformation of 
Christianity. But it was to he consummated only in Teutonic 
eounSX-a popular revolution, wrought in the minds an 
hearts of the people through the vernacular language. But 
£L was an absolute Latin-an obstinate, determined 
Tatin He knew, he would know, no languages but Latin 
and Greek. We have seen him in Italy, almost running 



Essay IL] 



LIFE OF EKASMUS. 



129 



the risk of his life from his disdainful refusal to learn even the 
commonest phrases. To French he had an absolute aversion — 
6 It is a barbarous tongue, with the shrillest discords, and 
words hardly human.' 1 He gave up his benefice in England 
because he would not learn to speak English. We know not 
how far he spoke his native Dutch, but Dutch can have been 
of no extensive use. He more than once declined to speak 
German. 2 Of the Swiss-German, spoken at Basil, where he lived 
so long, he knew nothing. In one passage, indeed, he devoutly 
wishes that all languages, except Greek and Latin, were utterly 
extirpated ; and what bears more directly upon our argument, we 
think that we remember a passage in which he expresses his 
deep regret that Luther condescended to write in any tongue 
but Latin. 

We, according to our humour, may smile with scorn or with 
compassion at the illusion which, as we have before said, pos- 
sessed the mind of Erasmus of a tranquil reformation, carried 
out by princes, and kings, and popes. Yet it was his fond 
dream that Churchmen, as Churchmen then were, might be 
persuaded to forego all the superstitions and follies on which 
rested their power and influence, and become mild, holy, self- 
denying pastors ; 3 — that sovereigns, like Charles, and Francis, 
and Henry — each a bigot in his way ; Charles a sullen, Francis 
a dissolute, Henry an imperious bigot — should forget their 
feuds, and conspire for the re-establishment of a pure and apos- 
tolic church in their dominions ; — that Popes, like the volup- 
tuous Leo ; the cold and narrow Adrian of Utrecht ; the 
worldly, politic, intriguing Medici, Clement VII., should become 
the apostles and evangelists of a simple creed, a more rational 

1 A German child will learn to speak French — ' Quod si id fit in lingua barbard 
et abnormi, quae aliud scribit quam sonat, quseque suos habet stridores et voces vix 
humanas, quanto id facilius fieret in lingua Grrseca seu Latina.' — Be Pueris Insti- 
tuendis. Compare Hess, i. 133. 

2 Epist. 635. See also Jortin, i. p. 246. 

8 ' Optabam illuc sic tractare Christi negotium, ut ecclesise proceribus, aut pro- 
baretur aut certe non reprobaretur.' — Jodoco Jonse, Epist. 

' At ego libertatem ita malebam temperatam, ut Pontifices etiam et monarch* 
ad hujus negotii consortium pellicerentur.' — Melanchthonii, Epist. 

K 



130 LIFE OF ERASMUS. C EssAY IL 

ritual, a mild and parental control ;— that the edifice of 
sacerdotal power, wealth, and authority, which had been grow- 
ing up for centuries, should crumble away before the gentle 
breath of persuasion. We who have read the whole history of 
the awful conflict for emancipation, the strife of centuries 
downwards, from the Thirty Years' War, for emancipation not 
yet nearly won, may pity the ignorance of mankind, the want 
of sagacity and even of common sense in Erasmus ; we may 
shake our knowing heads at the argument which he propounded 
in simple faith, < that it was not a greater triumph than that 
achieved at the first promulgation of Christianity.' 

Yet blinded— self-blinded, it may be— for a time by this, 
dare we say pardonable, hallucination, Erasmus stood between 
the two parties, and could not altogether close his eyes. He 
could not but see on one side the blazing fires of persecution, 
the obstinate determination not to make the least concessions, 
the monks and friars in possession of pulpits, new enemies 
springing up in all quarters against himself and against polite 
letters, which were now openly branded as the principal source 
of all heresy; the dogs of controversy— the Sorbonne, men of 
rank and station, like Albert, Prince of Carpi, Frenchmen, 
Germans, Spaniards, Italians — let loose upon himself, or 
bursting their leashes, and howling against him in unchecked 
fury. On the other hand, tumult, revolt, perhaps— and too 
soon to come— civil war ; the wildest excesses of language, the 
King of England treated like a low and vulgar pamphleteer, 
the Pope branded as Antichrist ; excesses of conduct, at least 
the commencements of iconoclasm ; threatening schisms, as on 
the Eucharist; polite letters shrinking back into obscurity 
before fierce polemics ; the whole horizon darkened with things 
more dark, more awful, more disastrous. 

But the man of peace, the man of books, could not be left 
at rest. The unhappy conflict with Ulric Hutten, forced upon 
him against his will, not merely made him lose his temper, 
and endeavour to revenge himself by a tirade, which we would 
most willingly efface from his works, but committed him at 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



131 



least with the more violent of the Lutheran party. Erasmus, 
in more than one passage of his letters, deplores the loose 
morals, as well as the unruly conduct, of many who called 
themselves Lutherans. All revolutions, especially religious 
revolutions, stir up the dregs of society ; and most high-minded 
and dauntless Eeformers, who find it necessary to break or 
loosen the bonds of existing authority, must 'look to bear the 
blame of men who seek freedom only to be free from all 
control — 

Who licence mean when they cry liberty. 

Of a far higher cast and rank than such men, but of all the 
disciples of Luther the one in some respects most uncongenial 
to Erasmus, was Ulric Hutten. Of Hutten's literary labours, 
his free, bold, idiomatic Latinity; his powers of declamation, 
eloquence, satire ; his large share in the famous 6 Epistolse 
Obscurorum Virorum ' 4 (now, thanks to Sir W. Hamilton and 
to Dr. Strauss, ascertained with sufficient accuracy), no one 
was more inclined to judge favourably, or had expressed more 
freely that admiring judgement, than Erasmus. He had cor- 
responded with him on friendly terms. But Hutten's morals 
certainly were not blameless. He was a turbulent, as well as 
a dauntless man — restless, reckless, ever in the van or on the 
forlorn hope of reform ; daring what no one else would dare, 
enduring what few would endure, provoking, defying hostility, 
wielding his terrible weapon of satire without scruple or re- 
morse, and ready, and indeed notoriously engaged, in wielding 
other not bloodless weapons. The last that was heard of him had 
been in one of what we fear must be called the robber-bands of 
Franz Sickengen. Already Ulric Hutten had taken upon him- 
self the office of compelling Erasmus to take the Lutheran 
side. In a letter written (in 1520), under the guise of the 
warmest friendship, he had treated him as an apostate from 

4 Erasmus is said to have owed his life to this publication. He laughed so 
violently while reading the letters, as to break a dangerous imposthume. He, how- 
ever, not only disclaimed, but expressed, strong disapprobation of the tone and 
temper of the book. 

k 2 



m LIFE OF ERASMUS. t*« IL 

the common cause.'. In the affair of Reuchlin, Erasmus, in 
Hntten'sjudgement(ajuagementwhichhecarednotto conceal), 

fcW timidly and basely. He had at first highly lauded the 
r E pf st l oLurorum Virorum,' afterwards 
deled them. He had endeavoured to persuade the adver- 
saries of Luther that the Reformation ™ 
he (Erasmus) had no concern. In a second letter, Hutten had 
endeavoured to work on the fears of Erasmus He urge ^ 
his 'adorable friend' that 'he could not be safe sxnce Luther s 
hooks hadbeen burned: will they who *™<™^J»$2 
spare yon? Fly, fly and preserve yourself for us! WrjWj 
you can, most excellent Erasmus, lest some calamxty whxch I 
Idder to think of, overtake you. At Louvain, at Cologne 
you are equally in peril.' He suggests to Erasmus to tak 
refuse in Basil.* Erasmus did retire to Basxl, but retxred to 
pl a C ; himself in connection with his printer Two years after 
Lie Hutten, in wretched health, in utter 
an outlaw, hunted down, it might seem, as one of Franz Sxck- 
engen's disbanded soldiers, who could find no refuge xn Ger- 
many, appeared in Basil. The intercourse between Hutten 
Z Erasmus took place, unfortunately, through the busy and 
Lddling, if not treacherous, Eppendorf. This man, by some 
to htve been of high birth, was studying theology at Basxl 
at the cost of Duke George of Saxony, the determined enemy 
of Lutheranism. The unpleasant quarrel whxch afterwards 
took place between Eppendorf and Erasmus, in whxch Eppen- 
dorf tried to extort money from Erasmus on account of an 
imprudent and ungenerous letter of Erasmus to the dxsadvan- 
taee of Eppendorf, gives but a mean opinion of this man. On 
STwXf bis arrival, Hutten sent Eppendorf to Erasmus 
it might seem expecting to be received with open arms, xf not 
taken under his hospitable roof. But Erasmus was by no means 
disposed to commit himself with so unwelcome a guest, who was 



amico summo.' 

« Opera Hutteni, Munch. 4, 49 53. 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 133 



still suffering under a loathsome malady ; or to make his house 
the centre, in which Hutten would gather round him all the 
most turbulent and desperate of the Lutherans. He shrunk 
from the burthen of maintaining him. Hutten, if we are to 
believe Erasmus, was not scrupulous in money matters, ready 
to borrow, but unable to pay. Erasmus repelled his advances 
with cold civility, but there is a doubt whether even his civil 
messages reached Hutten. There were negotiations, no doubt 
insincere on both sides. One could not bear the heat of a 
stove, the other could not bear a chill room without one. 7 In 
short, they did not meet. The indefatigable Hutten employed 
his time at Basil, sick and broken down as he was, in his 
wonted way, in writing two fierce pamphlets ; one against the 
Elector Palatine, one against a certain physician, who probably 
had been guilty of not curing him, to distract his mind, as 
Eppendorf said, from his sufferings. After two months Hutten 
received cold but peremptory orders from the magistrates to 
quit Basil. He retired to Mulhausen, to brood over the cool- 
ness and neglect of one from whom a man of calmer mind 
would hardly have expected more than coolness and neglect. 
A letter from Erasmus to Laurentius, Dean of St. Donatian at 
Bruges, fell in his way. In this letter Erasmus endeavoured 
still to maintain his stately neutrality, disclaimed all connec- 
tion with Luther, did honour to Luther's merits, to the truth 
of much of his censures, and to his services to true religion, 
but reproved his vehemence and violence ; and at the same 
time he protested against being enrolled among the adversaries 
of reform. This letter contained a hasty, and not quite accu- 
rate account of Hutten's visit to Basil. The busy Eppendorf 
rode to and fro between Basil and Mulhausen, and was not the 
mediator to conciliate men irreconcilably opposed in views and 
temper. The conclusion, the melancholy conclusion, was the 
'Expostulation' of Hutten, in which in fury of invective, in 
bitterness of satire, in the mastery of vituperative Latin, 



* The account in Dr. Strauss's Life of Hutten is on the whole fair and candid. 



18 4 LIFE OF EKASMUS. [Essay II. 

Hutten outdid himself: only, perhaps, to be outdone in all 
these qualities by the 'Sponge' of Erasmus. Luther himself 
stood aghast, and expressed his grave and sober condemnation 
of both. 8 

This unseemly altercation was not likely to maintain Erasmus 
in his dignified position of neutrality ; it rendered his mediation 
next to impossible, if it had ever been possible to stem or to 
quiet two such furious conflicting currents. But worse trials 
followed ; worse times came darkening over the man of books, 
the man of peace. The Peasant War broke out, desolating 
Southern Germany with atrocities, only surpassed, and far 
surpassed, by the atrocities perpetrated in their suppression. 9 
The Peasant insurrections were not religious wars ; they were 
but the last, the most terrible in a long succession of such 
insurrections, to which the down-trodden cultivators of the soil 
had, from time to time, been goaded by the intolerable oppres- 
sions of their feudal lords. Luther denounced them with all 
his vehement energy. Luther held, according to his views of 
Scripture, the tenet of absolute submission to the higher 
powers in all temporal concerns. Some of the most abject of 
the English clergy under the Stuarts might have found quota- 
tions from the writings of Luther, to justify the extremest 
doctrines of passive obedience. Still, with the desperate 
struggles for social freedom were now unavoidably mingled aspi- 
rations after religious freedom. Among the articles exhibited 
by the insurgents was a demand for the free choice of their 
religious pastors. 1 Some of the Eeformed Clergy were among 
the fautors, some perhaps more deeply concerned in the revolt ; 
many more were the victims of the blind, savage, indiscrimi- 
nating massacre which crushed the rebellion. How to the quiet 
Erasmus might seem to be accomplished his gloomy and fearful 

8 He writes in a lighter tone, « Equidem Huttenum nollem expostulasse, multo 
minus Erasmum extersisse!— Epist. ad Hausman ; De Wette, ii. 411. 

9 a.d. 1523. In one of the letters of Erasmus it is said that 100,000 human 
beings had perished in these wars. See Epist. 803. See also Luther's letters ; 
De Wette, iii. 22. 

1 See Sartorius. Bauern Krieg, Berlin, 1795. 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



135 



forebodings, that the tenets of Luther, breaking loose from 
authority, must lead to civil tumults ! The Peasant wars had 
not ended, or hardly ended, when the Anabaptists, 2 the first 
Anabaptists, arose, threw off at once all civil and religious 
obedience, with a fanaticism which had all the excesses, the 
follies, the cruelties, the tyranny of popular insurrection, with- 
out any of the grandeur, the noble self-sacrifice, the patriotic 
heroism of a strife for freedom. The voice of Luther was heard 
louder and louder, protesting, denouncing the monstrous 
wickedness, the monstrous impiety, the monstrous madness of 
these wild zealots ; he repudiated them in the name of Chris- 
tian faith and Christian morals, and called on all rulers and 
magistrates to put down with the severest measures, as they 
did without remorse, those common enemies of Christ and of 
mankind. Still these frantic excesses, notwithstanding this 
just and iterated disclaimer, could not but have some baneful 
effect on the progress of religious freedom ; they affrighted the 
frightened, raised a howl of triumph from the extreme bigots, 
and, on those who, like Erasmus, loved peace above all things, 
seemed to enforce the wisdom of their cautious and prophetic 
timidity. 

During all this time every influence, every kind of persua- 
sion, was used to induce Erasmus to take the part of the 
established order of things — flatteries, promises, splendid offers, 
gifts ; prelates, princes, kings, the Pope himself condescended 
to urge, to excite, almost to implore. Would the most learned 
man in Christendom stand aloof in sullen dignity ? Would he 
whose voice alone could allay the tumult, maintain a cold and 
suspicious silence ? Would he who had received such homage, 
such favours, such presents, persist in ungrateful disregard for 
the cause of order ? Would the lover of peace do nothing to 
promote peace ? His silence would be more than suspicious ; 
it would justify the worst charges that could be made against 
him; irrefragably prove his latent heresies, and show the 
just sagacity of his most violent adversaries, according to 

* The great outburst of Anabaptism under John of Leyden was later, 1529. 



136 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 



[Essay II, 



whom Luther had but hatched the egg which Erasmus had 
laid. Erasmus protested, but protested in vain, that he might 
have laid an egg, but that Luther had hatched a very different 
brood. From both sides came at once the most adulatory 
invitations and the most bitter reproaches. The extreme 
Eeformers taunted him as a cowardly apostate, the Eomanists 
as a cowardly hypocrite. 3 Neither party would believe that a 
man might with reason condemn both. There was no longer an 
inch of ground on which the moderate could be permitted to 
take his stand. Even now it is thought almost impossible 
that a wise, sincere, and devout Christian may deprecate the 
excesses of both parties in this great controversy, and strive 
to render impartial justice to the virtues as well of Luther 
as of some of his adversaries ; still less of those who hovered, 
in their time, in the midway over the terrible conflict. 
Erasmus, too, suffered one of the inevitable penalties of wit ; 
his sharp sayings were caught up, and ran like wildfire through 
the world — such sayings as are not only galling for the time, 
but are ineffaceable, and rankle unforgotten and unforgiven in 
the depth of the heart. In his interview with the Elector of 
Saxony he threw out carelessly the fatal truth : after all, 
Luther's worst crime is, that he attacked the crown of the 
Pope and the belly of the Monks. At a later period, after 
Luther's marriage, he gave as deep offence to the Eeformers : 
so the Tragedy has ended like a Comedy, in a wedding. 4 

It is doubtless right, it is noble, it is Christian to lay down 
life for faith ; but it was hard upon Erasmus to be called upon 
to hazard his comfort, his peace, even his life, for what he did 
not believe. That the Monks would have burned him, who 
doubts ? He expresses once and again fear of the more fanatic 
Lutherans. 5 Is it absolutely necessary, is it the undeniable 

3 ' Komse quidem me faciunt Lutheranum, in Germania sum Anti-Lutheranissi- 
mus, nec in quenquam magis fremunt quam in me, cui uni improbant, quod non 
triumphant.'— Epist. 667. See, among many other passages, Epist. 824, 6. 

4 Erasmus was on the whole favourable to the marriage of the clergy. — 
Epist. 725. 

5 Epist. 586, 657. In 660, 715, 718, he says no printer dares to print a word 
against Luther, 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 



137 



duty of every Christian man, not only to have made up his 
mind on the essential truths of the faith, but on all the lesser 
and subsidiary truths, especially in a period of transition? 
That religious truths are revealed with different degrees of 
clearness, revealed differently perhaps to different minds, who 
can question ? The theory of Erasmus (and who shall persuade 
us that Erasmus was not a sincere Christian?) rested in a 
simpler faith (he would have been contented, as Jeremy Taylor 
after him, with the Apostles' Creed), observances far less 
onerous and Judaical, superstitions cast aside, the Scriptures 
opened to the people, above all, more pure, more peaceful 
lives, which would have given time and tranquillity for the 
cultivation of letters. Some subjects, as the Eucharist, he had 
not profoundly investigated. On the supremacy of the Pope, 
on what is called the Consent of the Church, he acquiesced in 
the common opinions : how long was it that Luther had eman- 
cipated himself from the universal creed ? But on this point 
all were agreed, who were agreed on nothing else, that Erasmus 
must take his line ; set his hand to the plough in one furrow 
or the other, and never look back. He was playing a fearful 
penalty for his fame. 

Slowly, with much hesitation, Erasmus screwed up his 
courage to the point of entering the arena. He was himself 
conscious of his own unfitness for such a conflict, embarrassed 
by his own former career, even by his hard-won fame. He had 
managed the defensive arms of controversy with skill ; resent- 
ment at personal injuries had given dexterity to his hand ; nor 
was he sparing, as his strife with Lee, with Stunica, with 
Egmont, and with Hutten will show, in merciless recrimination. 
So important a resolution could not but transpire. Luther 
addressed a letter to him, a noble letter, with too much of 
that supercilious assumption of the exclusive and incontestable 
possession of Christian truth — without which he had not been 
Luther, nor had the Eeformation changed the world — but in all 
other respects calm, dignified, Christian, not deigning to avert 
his assault, nor defying it with disdainful indifference : — 



|38 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. 

Grace and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ. I have been long 
silent most excellent Erasmus, and although I expected that you would 
first have broken silence, as I have expected so long, charity itself 
impels me to begin. I shall not complain of you for having behaved 
yourself as a man estranged from us, to keep fair with the Papists, my 
enemies. Nor did I take it very ill that, in your printed books, to gam 
their favour or mitigate their fury, you censured us with too much 
acrimony. We saw that the Lord had not bestowed on you the courage 
and the resolution to join with us freely and confidently in opposing 
those monsters, nor would we exact from you that which surpasses 
your strength and your capacity. We have even borne with your 
weakness, and honoured the measure which God has given you; for 
the whole world cannot deny the magnificent and noble gifts of God in 
you for which we should all give thanks, that through you letters 
flourish and reign, and we are enabled to read the Holy Scriptures m 
their purity. I never wished that, forsaking or neglecting your own 
measure of grace, you should enter into our camp. You might have 
aided us much by your wit and by your eloquence, but since you have 
not the disposition and courage for this, we would have you serve God 
in your own way. Only we feared lest our adversaries should entice 
you to write against us, and that necessity should compel us to oppose 
you to the face. We have held back some amongst us, who were dis- 
posed and prepared to attack you; and I could have wished that the 
< Complaint' of Hutten had never been published, and still more that 
your < Sponge ' in answer to it had never appeared, from which you may 
see and feel at present, if I mistake not, how easy it is to say fine 
things about the duty of modesty and moderation, and to accuse Luther 
of wanting them, and how difficult and even impossible it is to be really 
modest and moderate, without a special gift of the Holy Spirit. Believe 
me, or believe me not, Christ is my witness, that from my very heart 
I condole with you, that the hatred and the zeal of so many eminent 
persons has been excited against you, a trial too great for mere human 
virtue like yours. To speak freely, there are amongst us who, having 
this weakness about them, cannot endure your bitterness and dissimu- 
lation, which you wish should pass for prudence and moderation. They 
have just cause for resentment, and yet would not feel resentment if 
they had more greatness of mind. I also am irascible, and when irri- 
tated have written with bitterness, yet never but against the obstinate 
and hardened. My conscience bears me witness, the experience of 
many bears witness, I believe, to my clemency and mildness towards 
many sinners and many impious men, however frantic and iniquitous. 
So far have I restrained myself towards you, though you have provoked 
me, and I promised, in letters to my friends, still to restrain myself, 
unless you should come forward openly against us. For although you 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



139 



think not with us, and many pious doctrines are condemned by you 
through irreligion or dissimulation, or from a sceptical turn, yet I 
neither can nor will ascribe stubborn perverseness to you. What can I 
do now ? Things are exasperated on both sides : I could wish if it were 
possible to act as mediator between you, and that they would cease to 
assail you with such animosity, and suffer your old age to sleep in peace 
in the Lord ; and thus they would act according to my judgement, if they 
either considered your weakness or the greatness of the cause, which 
has so long been beyond your capacity ; more especially, since our 
affairs are so advanced, that our cause is in no peril, even should 
Erasmus attack it with all his might, with all his acute points and 
strictures. On the other hand, my dear Erasmus, you should think of 
their weakness, and abstain from those sharp and bitter figures of rhe- 
toric ; and if you cannot, and dare not assert our opinions, let them 
alone and treat on subjects more suited to you. Our friends, yourself 
being judge, do not easily bear your biting words, because human infir- 
mity thinks of and dreads the authority and the reputation of Erasmus ; 
and it is a very different thing to be attacked by Erasmus than by all the 
Papists in the world. 6 

He further urges him to be only a spectator of the tragedy, 
not to write books against him and his friends, to think of the 
Lutherans as of brethren, who 4 should bear,' according to St. 
Paul, each other's burthens. 6 It would be a miserable spec- 
tacle if both should be eaten up by their common foes. It is 
certain that neither party wishes anything but well to true 
religion. Pardon my childishness (infantiam), and farewell in 
the Lord.' 7 

But Erasmus was either too deeply committed, or too far 
advanced in his work, to be deterred from the fatal step. He 
chose what might seem an abstract question of high theology, 
or of abstruse philosophy ; that question which philosophy had 
in vain attempted to solve, and on which revelation maintains 
an inscrutable mystery, the Freedom of the Will ; that question 
not set at rest, we say it with due respect, by Sir W. Hamilton 
and Mr. Mansel. Later Eomish controversialists, as Mohler in 
his able 6 Symbolik,' have, in like manner, endeavoured to repre- 
sent the controversy of the Reformed Churches with Rome, as 

6 This is mainly Jortin's version, slightly altered. 

7 The letter is most correct in De Wette, ii. p. 498. 



14Q LIFE OP EKASMUS. E EssAY IL 

resting on that sole question, as if the Protestants nnifonnly 
denied the freedom of the will, which was asserted by the 
wiser Roman Catholics. But it has heen said, and we think 
truly said, that all reformers and founders of sects are pre- 
destinarians; calmer estahlished religions admit xn some form 
the liberty of the will; the sterner doctrine is stall that of 
sections or of sects. It survives and comes to life again under 
every form of faith, as with Augustine in the early Church 
with Jansenius in the Church of Rome, with a powerful school 
among ourselves. To Luther, to men who work the works of 
Luther, the strong, firm, undoubting conviction of truth is the 
discernible voice of God within; it is the divine grace, winch 
as divine, must be irresistible, if not, the sovereignty of God 
is imperilled. This and this alone is the primal movement of 
justifying faith; without this, the will is servile-servile , to 
sin, servile to Satan; and as this grace is vouchsafed only to 
the chosen, stern inevitable predestinarianism settled down 
over the whole, and Luther shrunk not from the desolating 
consequences. But Erasmus had learned and taught a different 
interpretation of the Scriptures; he had worked tt out from 
Ms biblical studies; he was most familiar with the . Greek 
Fathers who had eluded or rejected, as uncongenial with their 
modes of thought, all these momentous questions, stirred up 
by Pelagianism. He had a great distaste for Augustine to 
whom he preferred Jerome, as little disposed or qualified to 
plunge into those depths as himself. 

Erasmus doubtless did not fully perceive, but Luther did, 
how this question lay at the root of his whole system. 'You 
struck at the throat of my doctrine,* and I thank yon for it 
from my heart,' -so Luther closed his book on the Slavery of 
the Will. Luther spoke out his ' paradox,' as Erasmus called 
it, in the most paradoxical form; for not only was it his own 
profound conviction, but he intuitively felt, he knew by daily 

. ■ Deinde ethoc in te vehementer laudo et prsedico, quod solns p. ^ ^ 
ipsam es aggressus, hoc est, summam causae, nee me fat.garis ahems ulis eaus.s 



Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 141 

experience among his followers, that in this lay the secret of 
his strength ; that less than this would not startle mankind 
from the obstinate torpor, the dull lethargy, the ceremonial 
servitude, of centuries. This alone would concentrate the 
whole of Christianity on Christ, or on God through Christ ; 
would make a new religion, not vicarious through the priest- 
hood, but strictly personal ; would break for ever the sacerdotal 
dominion, which had disposed so long, at its despotic arbitre- 
ment, of the human soul, and had become a necessity of the 
religious nature ; would inaugurate the manhood of the mind, 
which must outgrow the period of tuition, and think and act 
for itself, and bear its own responsibility. Some of the best 
and most pious of the Komanists, Contarini, Sadolet, even for a 
time Pole, as Eanke has well shown, had embraced justification 
by faith, but they could not go farther and so be treacherous 
to their order; they did not see that this doctrine, to be 
efficacious, must stand alone, and must be severed from priestly 
authority. Luther was not a man to shrink from any extreme ; 
he saw his way, as far as it went, clearly, and would not be 
embarrassed, even by inevitable and most repulsive difficulties, 
let what would follow even by logical inference. This doctrine 
magnified the sovereignty of Grod, therefore to him it was 
irrefragable ; it was scepticism, impiety, atheism in others to 
call it in question. Yet even in his own day Melanchthon did 
not follow him to his stern conclusion. Melanchthon wrote at 
first with undissembled praise of the treatise of Erasmus. The 
later Lutherans have in general on this point deserted their 
master. It was accepted only in a very mitigated form by the 
Church of England. Wrought out with more fearless and 
unhesitating logic by his stern Genevan successor, it prevailed 
among the Puritans. Later, almost all the most learned, very 
many of the most pious of our Church, including John Wesley 
and his disciples, repudiated it. Erasmianism, as soon as the 

de Papatu, Purgatorio, Indulgentiis ac similibus nugis, potius quam causis in quibus 
me hactenus omnes fere venati sunt frustra. Unus tu et solus cardinem rerum 
vidisti et ipsum jugulum petiisti, pro quo ex animo tibi gratias ago.' 



142 LIFE OF EBASMUS. [Essay II. 

religious world calmed down, and so long as it is not in a state 
of paroxysmal struggle, usually renews its sway. 

Erasmus and Luther, therefore, in this controversy were as 
little likely to come to a mutual understanding, as if each had 
written in a language unknown to the other. On the ear 
of Luther and the Lutherans the calm, cool philosophy of 
Erasmus, the plain and perspicuous hut altogether passionless 
scriptural arguments, fell utterly dead. Even to us it must 
he acknowledged that there is something cold even to dull- 
ness in the treatise of Erasmus— the nice halance of the 
periods, the elaborate finish of the style, the very elegance of 
the Latinity, seem to show that the heart of Erasmus had no 
part in the momentous question. There is something dubious, 
too, in the prudence with which he chose the subject, and 
so eluded all those other questions, indulgences, purgatory, 
pilgrimages, worship of saints, monkery, the power of the 
clergy and of the Pope, on which he might have been cited 
against himself, and in which he was the undoubted forerunner 
of Luther. And all this contrasts most unfavourably with the 
hold, the vehement, the honest, the profoundly religious tone 
of his adversary. With all its coarseness, almost its truculence, 
with all its contemptuous and arrogant dogmatism, with what 
might seem the study to present everything in the most 
alarming, almost repulsive, form, the treatise on the Servitude 
of the Will, though it leaves us unconvinced, rarely leaves us 
unmoved; there is an infelt and commanding religiousness 
which by its power over ourselves reveals the mystery of its 
wonderful power over his own generation. At all events the 
cold smooth oil of Erasmus had only made the fire burn more 
intensely; the intervention of the great scholar, of the first 
man of letters, of the oracle of Transalpine Christendom, 
instead of answering the sanguine expectation of the one side, 
or the awe on the other, was absolutely without effect: many 
Lutherans may have been exasperated, it may be doubted if 
one was changed in sentiment by the treatise on the Freedom 
of the Will. Erasmus, in his ' Hyperaspistes,' or rather his two 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



143 



Treatises, answered Luther. 9 He had lost much of his serene 
temper, but gained neither fame nor authority. There is a 
kind of consciousness, which involuntarily betrays itself, that 
he had not improved his position. In truth he had estranged 
still further his natural allies, the Eeformers ; the Papalists, who 
at first hailed their champion with noisy acclamation, revenged 
their disappointment at his want of success, by the unmitigated 
rancour with which they fell upon his former works. 1 

Yet still while Erasmus grew older and more infirm, the 
world darkened around him. Event after event took place, 
which threw him back more forcibly upon the tide of reaction. 
To all who were not yet disenchanted from the ancient, 
traditionary, almost immemorial majesty of the Papal See, 
who still honoured the Pope as the successor of St. Peter, as 
the Vicar of Christ, as the Head of the august unity of the 
Church 2 — and this was the case with Erasmus, the friend of 
more than one pope — what was the effect of the taking of 
Rome by the Constable Bourbon, with all its unspeakable 
horrors 3 — the flight, the imprisonment, the abasement of the 
Pope himself? It is true that in that act of high treason 
against the spiritual sovereign, with all its insults and cruel- 
ties, the Catholic Spaniards of the Constable were as deeply 
concerned as the Lutheran Germans of Greorge Frondsberg. 

But while at Basil Erasmus was sacrificing his peace at the 

9 The Lutherans bitterly complained of its tone ; they called it the Aspis, for 
its venom ; but its -wearisome prolixity must, even in its own day, have checked its 
malice. 

1 There is a most remarkable admission in a late Letter of Erasmus — all these 
questions ought only to be discussed, and temperately, by learned mem — ' et quae 
Lutherus urget, si moderate tractentur, mea, sententia propius accedunt ad vigorem 
Evangelicum.' — Epist. 1053, June 1, 1529. 

2 How deeply this awe was rooted in the mind of Christendom, may be best 
conjectured from the profoundly-reverent tone with which Luther himself wrote 
of the Pope, but a year or two before his final revolt. See his two letters in De 
Wette, in 1518 (p. 1119) and 1519 (p. 233). 

3 See Epist. 988. Among all its horrors (this is characteristic) Erasmus is 
most wrathful at the destruction of Sadolet's noble library : ' barbariem inaudi- 
tam ! Qua? fuit unquam tanta Scytharum, Quadorum, Wandalorum, Hunnorum, 
Gothorum immanitas, ut non contenta quicquid erat opum diripere, in libros, rem 
sacratissimam, sseviret incendio.' 



144 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. 

bidding of the Papalists, at Paris his books were proscribed, 
his followers burned at the stake. Of all the martyrs who 
suffered for the Reformation, none was more blameless, more 
noble, more calm and devont in his death, than Lonis Berquin, 
The crime of Berqmn was the translation, the dissemination, 
the earnest recommendation of the writings of Erasmus His 
powerful adversary was the enemy of Erasmus-Noel Bedier, 
or as he affected to call himself after our venerable bishop, 
Beda. Berquin was arrested, cast into prison, and the Sorbonne 
proceeded to issue an edict condemnatory of the writings of 
Erasmus. But the Queen-Mother, Louisa of Savoy, protected 
Berquin, and on the return of the King to Paris a royal man- 
date was issued for his release. He remained in Pans for 
three years (from 1526 to 1529), still openly disseminating the 
works of Erasmus. It was another of his crimes that he boldly 
asserted the duty of publishing the Scriptures in the vulgar 
tongue, also a tenet of Erasmus, to whom he was personally un- 
known, but to whom he wrote, and received a reply urging him 
to prudence, to flight, and this not only on his own account for 
it must be confessed that the selfish fear of Erasmus, lest he 
too should be imperilled by his manly disciple, seems to be his 
ruling motive. Unfortunately the profane mutilation of an 
image of the Virgin, in which Berquin was not even charged 
as in any way concerned, exasperated the impetuous and 
versatile Francis. Berquin was abandoned to his persecutors. 
He was scourged, condemned to see his books publicly burned, 
to make an abjuration in the Place de Greve, to have his 
tongue pierced with a hot iron, and to imprisonment for life. 
Berqnin refused to abjure; he aggravated his offence by an 
appeal to the Pope and to the King. A vain appeal! He 
was sentenced to the flames. Nothing could surpass the holy 
serenity of his martyrdom. He seemed, as was reported by 
an eye-witness to Erasmus, as he marched to the stake like 
one in his library absorbed in his studies, or in a church 
meditating on heavenly things. His mien and gestures, when 
he went to his death, were easy and quick, with nothing of 
defiance or sullen obstinacy. Six hundred soldiers were ordered 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OF ERASMUS. 



145 



out to prevent tumult, and, by the noise they made, to pre- 
vent his dying words being heard by the populace. No one 
dared murmur the name of Jesus as he was suffocated by the 
names. We wish that there had been more generous sympathy 
at his fate, more righteous indignation against his persecutors, 
in the cold letter of Erasmus which describes his death. It is 
sad to see the growing perplexity of the gentle scholar, as 
age and infirmities more and more enfeeble him, in those dis- 
tracted times. 4 He still shrinks with natural and conscientious 
abhorrence from the burning of heretics, but he has begun 
to draw nice distinctions between the forms of heresy. He 
cannot, after the death of Berquin, quite approve of the stern 
severity of the French government, and their subservience to 
the Papal See. 6 But perhaps it is better to err in this way, 
than to permit the unbridled licence, which prevails in some 
German cities, in which the Pope is Antichrist, the cardinals 
the creatures of Antichrist, the bishops monsters, the clergy 
swine, monasteries conventicles of Satan, princes tyrants. The 
Evangelical populace were in arms, more ready to fight than 
to be instructed.' 

But still worse days were to come. While France was thus 
recoiling towards the Papacy, England, Erasmian England, 
was making rapid strides in the opposite direction. Nowhere 
had the writings of Erasmus met with such universal acceptance 
as in England. 5 The King, the Queen, even Wolsey, Arch- 
bishop Warham, as we have seen, Fisher, More, were his 
patrons or dear friends. Lee had been almost his only English 
assailant, and Lee was then an obscure man : but he had been 
growing into favour, and was suspected by Luther as having a 
chief hand in the King's attack upon him. First came the 

4 Epist. mTjX. p. 1206. ' Si non commeruit supplicium doleo, si commeruit bis 
doleo : satius est enim innocentem mori quam nocentem ! ! ! ' Erasmus rather softens 
away how much his own works had to do with the fate of Berquin. Compare 
Berquin's letter, cccxxv. p. 1712. Erasmus concludes with this: ' Qui si decessit 
cum bona conscientia, quod admodum spero, quid eo felicius? . . . Varia sunt 
hominum juclicia. Ille felix qui, judice Deo, absolvitur.' 

5 He complains, in 1527, that he had been preached against at Paul's Cross, 
before the Lord Mayor.— Epist, 882. 



146 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II 

Divorce ; Queen Catherine had been a diligent reader of the 
writings of Erasmus ; she had accepted the dedication of his 
treatise on 'Matrimony.' But on the Divorce, however it 
might grieve him, he might maintain a prudent and doubtful 
silence. 6 Before his death, however, Erasmus must hear the 
terrible intelligence of the execution of Fisher and of More. 
If the passionless heart of Erasmus was capable of deep and 
intense love for any human being, it was for More. Of all his 
serious writings, nothing approached in beauty, in life, in 
eloquence, to his character of his two models of every Christian 
virtue— the recluse Franciscan Abbot of St. Omer, Vitrarius, 
and Sir Thomas More. Of these, one had been, by what 
might well be thought in these troubled times, the divine 
mercy, early released from life. With the other, Erasmus had 
still maintained close and intimate correspondence : his writings 
teem with passages bearing testimony to the public, and 
especially to the domestic, virtues of More. No two men 
could have had more perfect sympathy in character and in 
opinion. No man had laughed so heartily at the wit of 
Erasmus : the 'Praise of Folly,' as it has been said, came from 
the house of More. More's eyes were as open to the abuses of 
the Church, to the vulgar superstitions, to the inveterate evils 
of scholasticism and monkery as those of Erasmus. The biblical 
studies, the calm reasoning piety of the serious writings of 
Erasmus were as congenial as his wit to More. More, like 
Erasmus, had a premature revelation of the wisdom and of the 
virtue of religious toleration. The reaction seized them both : 
they were shaken with the same terror ; they recoiled at the 
same excesses of some among the Reformers ; each had the 
most profound love of peace. But from his position, and from 
his more firm and resolute character, the Chancellor of Eng- 
land was either driven or drove himself much further back. 
Erasmus was a reluctant, tardy controversialist ; More a will- 
ing, a busy, a voluminous one: this is not generally re- 

« < Nullus unquam mortalium ullam syllabam ex me audivit, approbantem aut 
improbantem hoc factum. Prseterea nemo mortalmm me super hoc interpellavit 
negotio.' He gives his reasons, his being counsellor to the Emperor, gratitude to 
Henry VIII., friendship to Sir Thomas Boleyn.— Epist. 1253. 



Essay II.] 



LIFE OE ERASMUS. 



147 



membered. In his answer to Tyndale and Frith, in his 
answer to Barnes, above all, in his ' Supplication of Souls,' in 
reply to the celebrated 6 Supplication of Beggars,' More is the 
determined thorough-going apologist of all the abuses of the 
old system, of those at which he had freely laughed with 
Erasmus — Pilgrimages, Image-worship, Purgatory, the enor- 
mous wealth of the clergy, and of the monks. No one can 
know who has not read the latter work, with what reckless 
zeal More combated the new opponents, with what feeble 
arguments he satisfied his perspicuous mind. No one who has 
not read the 'Supplication of Souls' can [estimate More's 
strength and his weakness. No one can even fairly judge how 
far the native gentleness of his character, that exquisitely 
Christian disposition, which showed itself with all its tender- 
ness in his domestic relations, and gave to his ordinary life, 
still more to his death, such irresistible attraction, was proof 
against that sterner bigotry in defence of their faith, which 
hardens even the meekest natures, deadens the most sensitive 
ears to the cries of suffering, makes pitilessness, even cruelty, 
a sacred duty. We leave to Mr. Froude and to his opponents 
the difficult, to us unproven, questions of the persecutions, the 
tortures, which More is accused as having more than sanctioned, 7 
But the general tone, and too many passages in these works, 
as we must sadly admit in those of Erasmus, show that both 
had been driven to tamper at least with the milder and more 
Christian theoretic principles of their youth; both branded 
heresy as the worst of offences, worse than murder, worse than 
parricide ; and left the unavoidable inference to be drawn as 

7 It wcmld be unpardonable to omit the testimony of Erasmus, but we must 
give the whole on this point. 'Porro, quod jactant de carceribus an verum sit 
nescio. Illud constat, virum natura mitissimum nulli fuisse molestum qui monitus 
voluerit a sectarum contagio resipiscere. An illi postulant ut summus tanti regiri 
judex nullos habeat carceres. Odit ille seditiosa dogmata quibus nunc misere cok = 
cutitur orbis. Hoc ille non dissimulat, nec cupit esse clam sic addictus pietati, ut 
si in alterutram partem aliquantulum inclinet momentum, superstitioni quam im- 
pietati vicinior esse rideatur. Illud tamen eximije cujusdam clementise satis 
magnum est argumentum quod sub illo Cancellario, nullus ob imjorobata dogmata 
capitis poenam dedit, quum in utraque Grermania G-alliaque tarn multi sunt affecti 
supplicio.' — Epist. 526, additamenta. All the letter should be read.' 



148 



LIFE OF EEASMUS. 



[Essay II. 



to the justice, righteousness, even duty of suppressing such 
perilous opinions by any means whatever. Mourn over but re- 
fuse not merciful judgment even to the merciless ; obscure not 
the invaluable services of Erasmus to the cause of intellectual 
light and of Christian knowledge ; obscure not the inimitable 
virtues, the martyr death, of More for conscience sake, the life 
put off even with playfulness, we say not resignation, and in full, 
we doubt not justifiable, hope of the robes of a glorified saint. 

Only a few words more, after this last fatal blow, may close 
the life of Erasmus. He had already, on the legal establish- 
ment of the ^Reformation at Basil, not altogether without con- 
tention which had been overawed by the firmness of the 
Senate, taken up his residence at Friburg in the Brisgau, in 
the territories of Ferdinand of Austria. 8 Before the death of 
More he had returned to Basil. After More's execution he 
lived [for nearly a year ; his books were his only true and 
inseparable friends, and in his books he found his consolation. 
To the last his unwearied industry pursued the labour of love. 
He was employed as editor of Origen when he was summoned 
to his account, we trust to his reward. So passed away a man 
with many faults, many weaknesses, with much vanity, with a 
want of independence of character ; faults surely venial con- 
sidering the circumstances of his birth, his loneliness in the 
world, his want of natural friends, and even of country, and 
his physical infirmities : but a man who, in the great period of 
dawning intellect, stood forth the foremost ; who in the scholar 
never forgot the Christian — he was strongly opposed to the 
new Paganism, which in Italy accompanied the revival of 
classical studies 9 — whose avowed object it was to associate the 
cultivation of letters with a simpler Christianity, a Christianity 
of life as of doctrine ; who in influence at least was the greatest 
of the 6 Eeformers before the Keformation.' 

8 a.d. 1529. See Epist. 1048. 

9 ' Unus adhuc scrupulus habet animum rneum, ne sub obtentu priscse litera- 
ture renascentis caput erigere eonetur Paganismus ; ut sunt inter Christianos, qui 
titulo pene duntaxat Christum agnoscunt, eseterum intus Gentilitatem spirant.' 
—From an earl}- Letter (207), but he maintained the same jealousy to the end. 



149 



III. 

THE POPES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 1 

(February, 1836.) 

We envy the dispassionate and philosophical serenity with 
which the German historian may contemplate the most re- 
markable and characteristic portion of the annals of modern 
Europe— the rise, progress, and influence of the Papal power. 
In this country, the still-reviving, and it is almost to be feared, 
unextinguishable animosity between the conflicting religious 
parties, the unfortunate connection with the political feuds and 
hostilities of our own days, would almost inevitably, even if 
involuntarily, colour the page of the writer ; while perfect and 
unimpassioned equability would provoke the suspicious and 
sensitive jealousy of the reader, to whichever party he might 
belong. On one side there is an awful and sacred reverence 
for the chair of St. Peter, which would shrink from examining 
too closely even the political iniquities, which the most zealous 
Roman Catholic cannot altogether veil from his reluctant and 
half-averted gaze ; while, on the other, the whole Papal history 
is looked upon as one vast and unvarying system of fraud, 
superstition, and tyranny. In truth - notwithstanding the 
apparently uniform plan of the Papal policy— notwithstanding 
the rapid succession of ecclesiastics, who, elected in general at 
a late period of life, occupied the spiritual throne of the 
Vatican— the annals of few kingdoms, when more profoundly 

• Die Ebmische Papste, ihre Kirche unci ihre Stoat im sechszehntcn unci siebzehn 
ten Jahrhundert. Von Leopold Eanke. Erster band. Berlin. 1835. 



150 



THE POPES OP THE 



[Essay IIP 



considered, possess greater variety, are more strongly modified 
by the genius of successive ages, or are more influenced by the 
personal character of the reigning sovereign. Yet, in all times, 
to the Eoman Catholic the dazzling halo of sanctity, to the 
Protestant the thick darkness which has gathered round the 
pontifical tiara, has obscured the peculiar and distinctive 
lineaments of the (xregories, and Innocents, and Alexanders. 
As a whole, the Papal history has been by no means deeply 
studied, or distinctly understood ; in no country has the modern 
spiritual empire of Eome found its Livy or its Polybius ; no 
masterly hand has traced the changes in its political relations 
to the rest of Europe from the real date of its temporal power, 
its alliance with the Frankish monarchs — nor the vicissitudes 
of its fortunes during its long struggle for supremacy. Almost 
at the same time the slave of the turbulent barons of Eomagna, 
or of the ferocious populace of the city, and the powerful pro- 
tector of the freedom ©f the young Italian republics — the un- 
wearied and at length victorious antagonist of the German 
emperors — the dictator of transalpine Europe ; — now an exile 
from the imperial and Holy City, yet in exile swaying the 
destinies of kingdoms — triumphing even over its own civil 
dissensions, and concentrating its power, after it had been 
split asunder by schisms almost of centuries, not merely un- 
enfeebled, but apparently with increased energy and ambition : 
— no subject would offer a more imposing or more noble theme 
for a great historian than that of the Papacy ; none would 
demand higher qualifications — the most laborious inquiry, the 
most profound knowledge of human nature, the most vivid 
and picturesque powers of description, the most dignified 
superiority to all the prepossessions of age, of country, and 
of creed. 

Of all periods in the Papal history, none perhaps is less 
known to the ordinary reader, in this country at least, than 
that comprehended within the work of Mr. Eanke, the cen- 
turies which immediately followed the Eeformation. Just 
about the time of that great sera in the religious and civil 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 151 

history of mankind, the reign of Charles V., the extraordinary 
characters of the ruling pontiffs, and the prominent part which 
they took in the affairs of Europe, have familiarized the least 
diligent readers of history with the names and the acts of 
Alexander VI., of Julius II., and of Leo X. The late Mr. 
Koscoe's life of the latter pontiff, though, from its feebler and 
less finished execntion, it disappointed the expectations raised 
by that of Lorenzo de' Medici, filled up some part of this 
great chasm in our history. But, after the Protestant nations 
of Europe had seceded from the dominion of Rome, they seem 
to have taken no great interest in the state of the Papacy ; 
they cared not to inquire by what hands the thunders of the 
Vatican were wielded, now that they were beyond their sphere : 
so that they scarcely perceived the effects of the Reformation 
itself upon the Papal system, the secret revolution in the court 
of Rome and in the whole of its policy, the different relation 
assumed by the Papal power towards that part of Europe which 
still acknowledged its authority. 

This extraordinary fact, of the silent retirement of the 
Papal power almost entirely within its ecclesiastical functions ; 
the complete subordination of the temporal interests of the 
Pope, as an Italian prince, to those of his spiritual supremacy ; 
the renovation of the Papal energy iu its contracted dominion 
over Southern Europe and its foreign possessions ; its con- 
firmed and consolidated power in the countries which had not 
rejected its supremacy, from the higher personal character of 
the pontiffs, who, from this time, if darkened, to our judge- 
ment, by the varying shades of bigotry, were invariably men 
of high moral character, and of earnest and serious piety ; the 
extension of its influence by the activity of the Religious 
Orders, more particularly the new institution of the Jesuits; 
the assumption of the general education of the people by this 
most skilfully organized and sagaciously administered com- 
munity --these subjects have been first placed in a clear and 
attractive point of view by Professor Ranke. If we should 
find a fault in the history before us, it would be that ou which 



152 



THE POPES OF THE 



[Essay III. 



we are most rarely called upon to animadvert, especially in 
German writers. Brevity is an offence against which our 
statutes are seldom put in force. Still where the author has 
made such laborious and extensive researches, and where his 
subject possesses so much inherent interest, we could have 
wished at times that he was less rapid, concise, and compressed 
— we could have borne greater fulness of development, a more 
detailed exposition of the course of events, and of the motives 
of the influential agents — more of the life and circumstance of 
history. In many parts the present reads like a bold and 
vigorous outline for a larger work. But, having exhausted 
our critical fastidiousness on this point, we have only the more 
gratifying duty of expressing our high estimate of the value of 
the present volume, and our confident reliance on the brilliant 
promise of those which are to follow. To the high qualifica- 
tions of profound research, careful accuracy, great fairness and 
candour, with a constant reference to the genius and spirit of 
each successive age, common to the historians of Germany, 
Mr. Eanke adds the charm of a singularly lucid, terse, and 
agreeable style. We do not scruple to risk our judgement on 
this point, which it is sometimes thought presumptuous in any 
one but a native to pronounce ; as we are inclined to think, 
that for an historical style, which, above all others, demands 
fluency, vivacity, and perspicuity, there can be no testimony 
more valuable than the pleasure and facility with which it is 
read by foreigners. 

Mr. Eanke is, we believe, the colleague of Mr. von Eaumer 
in the historical department at the University of Berlin ; and 
there can be no better proof of the wisdom with which the 
higher as well as the lower system of Prussiam education is 
conducted, than the selection, or indeed the command, of 
two such men as connected with this distinguished province of 
public instruction. 

Before we enter on the consideration of Mr. Eanke's history, 
it is right to give some account of his labours in searching out 
original sources of information, in order that we may justly 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 153 

appreciate the diligence of the writer, and the authority of his 
statements. We are the more anxious to do this, because the 
Professor seems to have derived great advantage from collec- 
tions, the existence of which, at least to the extent and value 
described in his preface, is little suspected. Having exhausted 
the archives of Berlin, Mr. Eanke proceeded to Vienna. 
Vienna has long been a great centre of European politics. 
Besides the relations of Austria with Germany — from her con- 
nections with Spain, with Belgium, with Lombardy, and with 
Eome, the Imperial archives have been constantly accumulating 
their treasures of public documents. The court of Vienna 
has for a long time had a passion for collecting, amassing, and 
arranging such papers. The Court Library (Hof-Bibliothek) 
has been enriched by many important volumes from Modena, 
and the 4 invaluable ' Foscarini manuscripts from Venice — the 
collections of the Doge Marco Foscarini for the continuation 
of the Italian Chronicles — and a very valuable collection made 
by Prince Eugene. The Imperial Archives are still richer ; 
the greater part of the treasures which belonged to Venice 
have been restored to that city, but there is still a vast stock 
of papers relating to the history of Venice, original despatches, 
extracts from the customs of the state, called Eubricaria ; 
narratives, of some of which no other copy is known to exist ; 
lists of state-officers, chronicles, and diaries. The archives of 
Vienna were of great value in illustrating the pontificates of 
Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V. Mr. Eanke's researches were 
next directed to the Venetian libraries. That of St. Mark is 
not only valuable for its own proper wealth, but as having 
received in latter days the wrecks of many old private collec- 
tions. This last is the department which has been first dis- 
covered and explored by Mr. Eanke. Both at Venice and at 
Eome the nobility took a pride in the collection of family- 
papers, which, of course, are constantly interwoven with public 
affairs. In Venice, the great houses almost always possessed a 
cabinet of manuscripts attached to their libraries ; some of 
these still remain, many were dispersed at the downfall of the 



154 THE POPES OP THE [Essay III. 

Kepublic in 1797. At Eome, the great houses, almost in- 
variably the descendants of the Papal families, the Barberinis, 
the Chigis, the Altieris, the Corsinis, the Albanis, have pre- 
served vast collections relating to the period of their power 
and splendour. Mr. Kanke describes the importance of these 
documents as not inferior to those of the Vatican. The free 
and liberal access to these collections compensated to him for 
the somewhat restricted use of the Vatican treasures, imposed 
partly, it should seem, by some mere personal jealousy on the 
part of Monsignor Maio, the librarian, and partly from the 
natural reluctance to open at once all the secrets of that 
mysterious treasure-house to a foreigner and a Protestant. Mr. 
Kanke, however, observes with some justice on the impolicy of 
this concealment at the present day, as inquiry can scarcely 
bring to light things worse than suspicion, thus awakened, will 
imagine, or than the world is inclined to believe. 

The present work, professing to be the History of the Popes 
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, properly com- 
mences with the two last years of the pontificate of Alexander 
VI. The prefatory chapters trace with rapidity, but with skill, 
the development of the Papal power from the establishment of 
Christianity. Already, before the opening of the sixteenth 
century, some ominous signs of resistance had menaced the 
universal autocracy established by Hildebrand and Innocent 
III. The national spirit in many countries had asserted its 
independence. In France, in England, in Germany, even in 
Spain and Portugal, a strong reluctance to the interference of 
the Papacy in the nomination to the most opulent benefices, 
and to the grinding taxation of the court of Eome, began to 
betray itself ; and the nation, as represented by its parliament 
or its nobles, had invariably supported the rebellious sovereign 
in his struggles against the ecclesiastical despotism. Towards 
the close of the fifteenth century, new objects of ambition 
opened upon the minds of the pontiffs. The nepotism, which 
had hitherto been contented with the accumulation of eccle- 
siastical benefices, and the spoils of the tributary kingdoms, 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 155 

upon the relatives of the ruling Pontiff, assumed a bolder 
flight. The state of Italy was tempting, and the Popes not 
only began to form schemes for the extension of their own 
temporal dominions, but aspired to found independent princi- 
palities in the persons of their relations. Native sovereigns, 
or at least native republics, now occupied the whole of Italy. 
The Sforzas on the throne of Milan, and the republic of Venice, 
ruled in Lombardy; the Medici in Florence, the House of 
Aragon in Naples. These powers had gradually absorbed many 
of the smaller states, and had reduced their sovereigns into 
subjects or feudatories. The subjugation of the turbulent 
barons of Eomagna, and the extension of the Papal territory 
into a powerful kingdom, offered immediate advantages which 
might have blinded the wisest of the Pontiffs to its remote 
and dangerous consequences. But the more fatal ambition of 
establishing an hereditary sovereignty in their own house led 
to more immediate and inevitable evil. The succeeding 
Pontiff found the fairest possessions of the Church alienated ; 
the favourite of one reign became of necessity the deadly 
enemy of the next ; the usurper must be ejected to make room 
for the present claimants on the Papal bounty. The Pope was 
thus more and more embroiled with his own vassals, more 
inextricably entangled in the labyrinthine politics of Italy, 
more fatally diverted from the higher objects of his temporal 
policy, as holding the balance between the great sovereigns of 
Europe. At all events the spiritual ruler of the world sank 
into a petty Italian prince. 

That was indeed a splendid dominion which had been erected 
over the mind of man by the Oregories and Innocents! Its 
temporal were always subordinate to its spiritual ends. It was 
a tyranny which repaid by ample and substantial benefits its 
demands upon the independence of mankind. It required 
tribute and homage, but it bestowed order, civilization, and, 
as far as was possible, in such fierce and warlike times, peace. 
It was a moral sway, not, like the temporal sovereignties of 
the time, one of brute force. It had comparatively nothing 



156 THE POPES OE THE [Essay III. 

narrow or personal ; it united Christendom into a vast federal 
republic ; it was constantly endeavouring to advance the bor- 
ders of the Christian world— to reclaim the heathen barba- 
rism of the North of Europe— or to repel the dangerous aggres- 
| sions of Mohammedanism. The Papacy, during the dark ages, 
notwithstanding its presumptuous and insulting domination 
over the authority of kings and the rights of nations, was a 
great instrument in the hand of Divine Providence, a counter- 
acting principle to the wild and disorganizing barbarism which 
prevailed throughout Europe, a rallying point for the moral 
and intellectual energies of mankind, when they should com- 
mence the work of reconstructing society upon its modern 
\ system. In such lawless times it was an elevating sight to 
\ behold an Emperor of Germany, in the plenitude of his power, 
arrested in his attempts to crush the young freedom of the 
Italian republics ; a warlike or a pusillanimous tyrant, a Philip 
Augustus of France, or a John of England, standing rebuked 
for their crimes and oppressions, at the voice of a feeble old 
man in a remote city, with scarcely a squadron of soldiers at 
! his command, and with hardly an uncontested mile of territory. 
From this lofty position, the Popes, towards the end of the 
fifteenth century, voluntarily descended. The strong man was 
caught in the toils of local and territorial interests. Low 
motives of personal and family aggrandizement degraded him 
into the common herd of kings ; and from the arbiter of the 
world, the acknowledged ruler of the moral and intellectual 
destinies of mankind, his ambition dwindled into that of a 
small sovereign prince, or the founder of a petty dynasty of 
Italian dukes. Had the Popes stood aloof from the politics of 
Italy, and only consulted the higher interests, we will not say 
of religion, but of the See of Eome, how commanding would 
have been their station during the conflict between the great 
monarchies into which Europe began to be divided ! At all 
events, how much would they have gained, had they been 
spared the animosities and the crimes into which they were 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 157 



plunged by the more ambitious nepotism of the times on which 

we are about to enter ! 

Sixtus IV. conceived the plan of forming a principality for his nephew 
Girolamo Riario, in the beautiful and fertile plains of Komagna. The 
rest of the Italian powers were already contesting for predominance in, 
or for the possession of, these territories ; and, as a question of right, 
the Pope had clearly a better title than the others. He was only de- 
ficient in political resources and in the means of war. He did not 
scruple to make his spiritual power, exalted in its nature and in its 
object above everything earthly, subservient to his temporal designs, 
and to debase it to the intrigues of the day, in which he was thus in- 
volved. As the Medici stood principally in his way, he mingled him- 
self up with the feuds of Florence, and brought on himself, as is well 
known, the suspicion that he was cognizant of the Pazzi conspiracy ; 
that he was not without knowledge of the murder which these men 
perpetrated before the altar of the cathedral — he the Father of the 
Faithful ! When the Venetians ceased to favour the enterprise of his 
nephew, which they had some time done, the Pope was not satisfied 
with deserting them in the midst of a Avar to which he himself had 
urged them ; he went so far as to excommunicate them for continuing 
the war. He acted with no less violence in Rome. He persecuted 
with wild relentlessness the adversaries of Riario, the Colonnas ; he 
forced from them Marino ; he stormed the house of the prothonotary 
Colonna, took him prisoner and executed him. His mother came to 
the church of St. Celso, in Banchi, where the body lay ; she lifted up 
by the hair the dissevered head, and cried—' This is the head of my 
son ! this is the truth of the Pope !— He promised, if we would yield 
up Marino, that he would liberate my son ; Marino is in his hands, my 
son in mine, but dead ! Lo ! thus does the Pope keep his word.' 

The first act of Csesar Borgia, the too-famous son of Alexander 
VI., who, though not the immediate successor to the popedom, 
was the immediate heir to the splendid nepotism of Sixtus, was 
to drive the widow of Eiario from Imola and Forli, of which 
the possession had been bought by so much crime, and by such 
a fatal precedent of degradation of the Papal power; In 
Caesar Borgia, Papal nepotism rose to its height of ambition 
and of guilt. 2 The inquiries of Eanke have thrown discredit on 

2 We have heard a striking anecdote relating to these times from one of the 
contemporary MS. documents. The writer, if we remember right, a Venetian am- 
bassador, was present at Eome during the tumult caused by the disappearance of 



158 



THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. 



no one crime; they have confirmed the monstrous mass of 
iniquity which has been charged against this man. But with 
all his subtlety, and all his profound Machiavellism, Csesar 
Borgia alone did not perceive the inherent instability of a 
power which must depend on the life of the reigning Pope. 
It was built on sand, and, however he might cement it with 
blood, it could not endure the shock. The sagacious Venetians, 
according to a MS. chronicle quoted by Eanke, looked on 
without concern, for they well knew that the conquests of the 
Duke Valentino were but < a fire of straw, which would soon 
go out of itself.' We may add to Mr. Eanke's authorities a 
passage from a curious and nearly contemporaneous life of 
Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, by Bernardino Baldi. When 
this duke was driven from his city by the extraordinary arts of 
Borgia, his subjects consoled him with the observation, that 
4 Popes do not live for ever.' 

Julius II., by fortunately obtaining the inheritance of this 
dukedom of Urbino in a peaceful way, was enabled to satisfy 
the claims of his family without warlike aggression. Thence- 
forward he could entirely devote himself to the nobler, yet by 
no means spiritual, object of his life, his warlike achievements 
for the aggrandizement of the Papal territory, and the expul- 
sion of foreign powers from Italy. 

With Julius II. the proper subject of Mr. Eanke's narrative 
commences. It was in the third year of the sixteenth century, 
that the poison which had served the house of Borgia with so 
much fidelity, revenged and liberated the world from the 
supremacy of Alexander VI. It was a singular coincidence, 
that exactly at the period at which the pure and genuine 
gospel of Christ was about to be re-opened, as it were, to the 
eyes of man— when, even if Luther had never lived, the art of 
printing must to a certain extent have revealed again the true 

the Duke of Gandia, Alexander's eldest son. < All Eome is in an uproar,' he writes : 
< the Duke of Gandia has been murdered, and his body thrown into the Tiber I 
have been upon the bridge ; I saw the body taken out of the ri v er ; I followed it to 
the gates of the Castle of St. Angelo. We thought we heard the voice of the old 
Pope wailing audibly above all the wild tumult: 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 159 



character of the evangelic faith — the highest office in the 
Christian community should have been filled by such men. 
The successor of Christ and his apostles was Alexander, in the 
midst of his blood-stained and incestuous family ; Julius II. in 
full armour, at the head of an host of condottieri ; and even 
Leo X., in his splendid and luxuriant court, where, if Chris- 
tianity was not openly treated as a fable, it had given place, 
both in its religious and moral influence, to the revived philo- 
sophy and the unregulated manners of Greece. The pontificate 
of Leo X. is sketched with admirable fairness and judgement by 
Mr. Eanke. The effect of the study of antiquity on poetry 
and the arts is developed with peculiar felicity. The men of 
creative genius at this stirring period had discovered the 
beauty, and deeply imbued their minds with the harmonious 
principles, of the ancient poets — but they were not yet enslaved 
to their imitation. 

Not that the Middle Ages had been altogether ignorant of the classic 
writers. The ardour with which the Arabians, from whose intellectual 
labours so much passed back into the south, collected and appropriated 
the works of the ancients, did not fall far short of the zeal with which 
the Italians of the fifteenth century did the same ; and Caliph Maimun 
may be compared, in this respect, with Cosmo de' Medici. But let us 
observe the difference. Unimportant as it may appear, it is, in my 
opinion, decisive. The Arabians translated, at the same time they 
often destroyed, the original. As their own peculiar ideas impregnated 
the whole of their translations, they turned Aristotle, we might say, 
into a system of tlieosophy ; they applied astronomy only to astrology, 
and astrology to medicine ; and medicine they diverted to the develop- 
ment of their own fantastic notions of the universe. The Italians, on 
the other hand, read and learned. From the Romans they advanced to 
the Greeks ; the art of printing disseminated the original works through- 
out the world in numberless copies. The genuine expelled the Arabian 
Aristotle. In the unaltered writings of the ancients, men studied the 
sciences : geography directly out of Ptolemy, botany out of Dioscorides, 
the knowledge of medicine out of Galen and Hippocrates. How could 
mankind be so rapidly emancipated from the imaginations which 
hitherto had peopled the world — from the prejudices which enslaved 
the mind. 

It was precisely at this period of transition from the dark 



THE POPES OP THE [Essay III. 



160 

ages to the revival of learning, that the second great epoch of 
the creative genius of Italy took place. The study of antiquity 
was now free, noble, emulative-not servile, cold, and pedantic. 
The old poetic spirit was yet unextinguished ; it admired, with 
kindred and congenial rapture, the graceful and harmonious 
forms of Grecian skill— it aspired to array its own conceptions 
in the same kind of grace and majesty. From this union of 
original and still unfettered imagination with the silent influ- 
ence of familiarity with the most perfect models, sprung the 
Komantic Epic, the Sculpture and Architecture of Michael 
Angelo, the Loggie of KafTaellf It is singular that Italy alone, 
which, perhaps, contributed nothing to the treasures of romance 
—excepting indeed that curious specimen of early Tuscan 
prose, the < Aventuriere Siciliano,' by Busone da Ckibbio (lately 
discovered and admirably edited by our countryman, Dr. Nott) 
—that Italy should alone have founded great poems on the 
old romances of chivalry. 3 But how wonderful the transmuta- 
tion of the rude and garrulous, and sometimes picturesque, old 
tales, by the magic hand of Bojardo and Ariosto, into majestic 
poems ! 

The following observations of Mr. Eanke are marked, in our 
opinion, with equal ingenuity and taste :— 

This is the peculiar character of the romantic epic, that its form 
and matter were equally foreign to the genius of antiquity; yet it be- 
trays the inward and unseen influence. The poet found prepared for 
his subject a Christian fable of mingled religious and heroic interest; 
the principal figures, drawn in a few broad and strong and general 
lines were at his command; he had ready for his use striking situa- 
tions, though imperfectly developed; the form of expression was at 
hand, it came immediately from the common language of the people 
With this blended itself the tendency of the age to ally itself with 
antiquity. Plastic, painting, humanizing, it pervaded the whole. How 
different is the Rinaldo of Bojardo- noble, modest, full of joyous 
gallantry-from the terrible son of Aimon, of the ancient romance! 
How is the violent, the monstrous, the gigantic, of the old representa- 
tion subdued to the comprehensible, the attractive, the captivating ! 

3 The Spanish Cid and the German Nibelungen are ancient national epic poems, 
not poems founded on old romances. 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 161 

The old tales in their simplicity have something pleasing and de- 
lightful ; but how different the pleasure of abandoning oneself to the 
harmony of Ariosto's stanzas, and hurrying on from scene to scene, in 
the companionship of a frank and accomplished mind ! The unlovely 
and the shapeless has moulded itself into a distinct outline— into form 
and music. 4 

The same admiration of the majesty of the ancient forms, 
struggling with, but never taming, the inventive boldness of 
genius, harmonized the sculpture of Michael Angelo. It was 
Bramante's sublime notion to rival the proportions of the 
Pantheon, but to suspend its dome in the air. The dispute 
whether Eaffaelle borrowed the exquisite arabesques of the 
Loggie from the antique shows how deeply he had imbibed the 
beauty of the Grecian form : still it only imperceptibly blends 
with his own free and graceful conceptions; it is the same 
principle working within him— from whatever source derived, 
however influenced in its secret development, the sense of 
beauty is in him an attribute of his nature— it is become 
himself. Tragedy alone in Italy wanted its Ariosto or Michael 
Angelo, In the cold and feeble hands of Trissino and Rucellai, 
it gave the form and outline of antiquity, but the form alone; 
all was dead and cold within— a direct, tame, and lifeless copy 
from the antique. Even comedy, though too fond of casting 
its rich metal in the moulds of Plautus and Terence, pre- 
served some originality of invention, some gaiety and freedom 
of expression. 

The manners of the court of Leo X. exhibited the same sin- 
gular combination— the same struggle for the mastery between 
the spirit of antiquity and the barbaric Christianity of the 
middle ages. The splendid ceremonial went on in all its pomp ; 
architecture and sculpture lavished their invention in building 
and decorating Christian churches. Yet the Vatican was visited 
less for the purpose of worshipping the footsteps of the Apostles 

* It is remarkable that the first reprint of Bojardo's genuine poem has been 
made in England by Sig, Panizzi. We admire the professor's taste and courage. 
The difference between the original work and the long-popular rifacciamento of 
Berni is, that one is in earnest, the other in jest-the one the work of a poet, the 
other of a satirist. 



162 



THE POPES OF THE 



[Essay III. 



than to admire the great works of ancient art in the papal 
palace— the Belvedere Apollo and the Laocoon. The Pope 
was strongly urged to undertake a holy war against the Infidels, 
but the scholars of his court (Mr. Kanke . quotes a remarkable 
passage from a preface of Navagero) thought little of the con- 
quest of the Holy Sepulchre ; their hope was that the Pope 
might recover some of the lost writings of the Greeks, or even 
of the Romans. The character of Leo himself is thus struck 
out in the journal of a Venetian ambassador. ' He is a learned 
man, and a lover of learned men, very religious, but he will 
Mve—(& docto eamador di docti, ben religioso, ma vol viver).' 
The acute Venetian calls him buona persona, which we may 
English, a good fellow. 

And Leo X. knew how to live ; — his summers were passed in 
the most beautiful parts df the Koman territory, in hunting, 
shooting, and fishing— men of agreeable talents, improvisatores, 
enlivened the pleasant hours : — 

In the winter he returned to the city : it was in the highest state of 
prosperity. The number of inhabitants increased a third in a few 
years. Manufactures found their profit— art, honour— every one se- 
curity. Never was the court more lively, more agreeable, more intel- 
lectual ; no expenditure was too great to be lavished on religious and 
secular festivals— on amusements and theatres— on presents and marks 
of favour. It was heard with pleasure that Juliano Medici, with his 
young wife, thought of making Rome his residence. 1 Praised be 
God ! ' Cardinal Bibiena writes to him : ' the only thing we want is a 
court with ladies.' 

Ariosto had been known to Leo in his youth— (Mr. Ranke 
has not noticed that the satires of the poet are not so favour- 
able to Leo's court). Tragedies, such as they were, and 
comedies, by no means wanting in talent, whatever might be 
said as to their decency, were written, and by the pens of 
cardinals. To Leo, Machiavelli had addressed his writings ; 
for him Raffaelle was peopling the Vatican with his more than 
human forms. Leo possessed an exquisite taste, and was 
passionately fond of music ; and Leo, the most fortunate of the 
Popes, as Ranke observes, was not least fortunate in his early 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 163 

death, before these splendid scenes were disturbed by the sad re- 
verses which were in some respects their inevitable consequence. 

Had Rome been merely the metropolis of the Christian 
world, from which emanated the laws and the decrees which 
were to regulate the religious concerns of mankind, this classical 
and Epicurean character of the court would have been of less 
importance ; but it was likewise the centre of confluence to the 
whole Christian world. Ecclesiastics, or those destined for the 
ecclesiastical profession, and even religious men of all classes, 
undertook pilgrimages to Rome from all parts of Europe. To 
such persons, only accustomed to the rude and coarse habits 
which then generally prevailed in the northern nations — to 
men perhaps trained in the severest monastic rules, who had 
been taught to consider the austerest asceticism as the essence, 
the perfection of Christianity — what must have been their 
impressions on entering this splendid and festive city — on 
beholding the Father of the Faithful in the midst of his 
sumptuous entertainments, amid all the luxuries of modern 
art, with heathen idols in his chambers, and heathen poets 
superseding the study of St. Augustine and St. Bernard ? 5 No 
doubt much relaxation of morals prevailed in this gay and 
intellectual court-circle, though Leo at least respected outward 
decency': yet it must be remembered how thoroughly the 
whole city had been vitiated by Alexander VI. ; and since the 
days of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, the atmosphere of 
Rome had not been too favourable to matronly virtue. No doubt 
much freedom of opinion was permitted among the scholars 
of the day. The philosophy as well as the art of Greece had 
revived in all its captivating influence; but its attempts to 
harmonize with Christianity did not meet with equal success, 

9 Ranke does not seem to be acquainted, with the poem of Ludovisi, the Triomplri 
di Carlo Magno— to which, on the authority of Dam, he ascribes a passage of pure 
materialism. The passage is genuine ; and indeed the general tone of Ludovisi's 
poem is strange enough ; but if Ranke had read it to the end (a severe trial, we 
must admit, even to German perseverance), he would have found a most orthodox 
conclusion— a fervent address to the Virgin ! This is another remarkable illustration 
of the conflict between the spirit of antiquity with the Christianity of the day. 

M 2 



16 4 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III, 

The priesthood itself had imbibed irreligious or sceptical 
opinions. 

How astonished was the youthful Luther when he visited Italy ! At 
the moment, at the instant that the offering of the mass was finished, 
the priests uttered words of blasphemy, which denied its value. ^ It 
was the tone of good society to question the evidences of Christianity. 
No one passed (says P. Ant. Bandino) for an accomplished man who 
did not entertain erroneous opinions about Christianity. At the court, 
the ordinances of the Catholic Church and passages of Holy Writ were 
spoken of only in a jesting manner— the mysteries of the faith were 
despised. 

To the coarse and barbarous minds of the less civilized 
nations of Europe, the elegancies and refinements of the 
Eoman court would be no less offensive and ireligious than 
their laxity of morals and belief. Luxury is the indefinite and 
•comprehensive term of reproach with which the vulgar, in all 
ages and all classes, brand whatever is beyond their own tastes 
and habits. What is luxury to some is but refinement and 
civilization to others. In nothing are men more intolerant than 
as to the amusements and less serious pursuits of others. The 
higher orders mingle up with their disgust at the boorish and 
noisy pastimes of the lower a kind of latent feeling of their 
immorality; the lower revenge themselves by considering as 
things absolutely sinful the more splendid entertainments and 
elegant festivities of their superiors in wealth and refinement. 
All think they have a right to demand from the clergy an 
exact conformity to their own prejudices with regard to their 
less severe and even their intellectual occupations; and the 
priesthood, which is, as a body, far in advance of the national 
standard in refinement and in elegance of manners and in 
taste, has already lost its hold on the general feeling. Hence 
Leo X. and his court, even if its morals had been less question- 
able — its philosophy more in unison with the doctrines of 
Christianity — and if sacred subjects had been constantly treated 
with the most reverential decency — would have stood in such 
direct opposition to the tastes, habits, and manners of the rest 
of Europe, as scarcely to have escaped the suspicion of an 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 165 

irreligious and anti-Christian tendency. As it was, the intel- 
ligence of the mode of life practised at Rome by the Cardinals, 
and by the Pope himself, darkening of course as it spread, 
reached every part of the Christian world; and thus, even if 
the lavish expenditure of Leo, in his gorgeous court and in 
his splendid designs for the embellishment of Rome, had not 
increased the burthen of ecclesiastical taxation throughout 
Christendom beyond endurance, his pontificate must greatly 
have loosened the hold of Popery on the general veneration. 

The effects of all this on the Reformation are well known ; 
but the strong reaction which, with the other circumstances of 
the period, it produced in Italy and Rome itself, and the per- 
manent influence of that strong reaction on the Papacy, have 
been traced with much less attention. Dr. Macrie, in his 
'History of the Reformation in Italy,' entered at some length, 
and with praiseworthy diligence, into part of the subject; but 
the controversial design of his volume, however able, was not 
consistent with a calm and comprehensive view of the whole 
bearings of this silent revolution in the character and policy of 
tSe Roman government, Christianity was too deeply rooted 
in the minds of men not to resist, and rally its dormant 
energies against the Epicurean or sceptical spirit of the age. 
Even during the reign of Leo an association was formed, com- 
prehending some of the most distinguished and learned men of 
the times, for the purpose of re-awakening in their own minds 
and in those of others the fervour of Christian piety. 

In the Transtevere, in the church of S. Silvestro and Dorotea, not 
far from the place where the Apostle Peter, according to the general 
belief, had his residence, and presided over the first assemblies of the 
Christians, they met for the purpose of divine worship, preaching, and 
spiritual exercises. Their numbers were from fifty to sixty. Among 
them were Conterini, Sadolet, Giberto, Carafe, afterwards, or at the same 
time, Cardinals; Gaetano da Thiene, who was canonized; Lippomano, a 
religious writer of great reputation and influence, and some other men of 
note. Julian Bathi, the pastor of the church, was their bond of union. 
Some of these remarkable men met, some years later, in the 
Venetian territory, at that critical period the only secure re- 



166 



THE POPES OF THE 



[Essay III. 



treat for letters and for religion. Borne had been plundered— 
Florence conquered — Milan was the constant scene of military 
operations. In some of the beautiful villas of the Venetian 
main land, belonging to the nobles or wealthy ecclesiastics of 
the republic, several of these Roman aristocratical methodists 
encountered exiles from Florence, on whom the preaching of 
Savonarola had produced deep and serious impressions, and 
Reginald Pole, then a fugitive from the jealousy of his kins- 
man, Henry VIII. The general tendency of these vigorous and 
well-instructed minds was no doubt Protestant. On the doc- 
trine of justification by faith their sentiments were in close 
unison with those of the Reformers. If these men, the religious 
party of the Roman Catholic world, had not been terrified 
back into stern opponents of all change, by the excesses of 
the Protestants, and by the open contempt of their first 
and vital principle, the unity of the Church; if these men, 
Italians by birth, and respectable even in Italy for their learn- 
ing, had obtained the guidance of the Papal policy ; if they 
could have disentangled it from the intricacies of Italian, if 
not of European politics, and steadily pursued the religions 
interests of the Pontificate, a liberal and comprehensive system 
of Christian union might still perhaps have been framed. But 
the circumstances of the times frustrated all these splendid 
schemes. As the Reforming party became more strong, the 
Roman Catholic drew back in uncompromising ^hostility. Of 
these great and good men who now occupied the high ground 
of a powerful mediatorial party, some retreated with hasty but 
firm step within the pale, and lent all the vigour of their 
minds and the authority of their religious character to the re- 
construction of the Papal power on its new and, if narrower, 
still majestic basis: others went onward with the stream; if 
they escaped beyond the Alps, they became, like Peter Martyr, 
distinguished supporters of Protestantism, — if they unhappily 
remained, they became victims of their free opinions, and fed 
the fires of the Inquisition : some, finally, like the Socini, went 
sounding on in the perilous depths, which the plummet of 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 167 

human reason vainly strives to fathom, till they arrived at 
opinions repudiated with equal abhorrence by both the con- 
flicting parties in Christendom. 

The transition from the brilliant court, the affable manners, 
the Italian vivacity, the noble representation of Leo X., to 
the cold, grave, and repulsive homeliness of a foreigner and a 
Dutchman, was too violent to be allayed by the mild virtues 
and conscientious spirit of conciliation displayed by Adrian of 
Utrecht. Clement VII. succeeded, the most unfortunate— (so 
Mr. Kanke observes, using, no doubt accidentally, the same 
expression as Robertson)— as Leo was the most fortunate of 
pontiffs. A Medici could not but involve himself fatally and 
inextricably in Italian politics. With a dignified propriety of 
character, moderation in his expenditure, yet no want of regard 
for the majesty of the see; with great acquirements, both 
theological and, as far at least as regards the principles of 
mechanics and architecture, scientific ; with no disinclination 
to patronize learning and the fine arts ; with habits of business, 
and extraordinary address and penetration— Clement VIL, in 
serener times, might have administered the Papal power with 
high reputation and enviable prosperity. But with all his 
profound insight into the political affairs of Europe, Clement 
does not seem to have comprehended the altered position of 
the Pope in relation to the great conflicting powers of Chris- 
tendom. Continental Europe had, in effect, become divided 
into two great monarchies ; and the Papal hand was not now 
strong enough to hold the balance between the vast empire of 
Charles V. and the more compact and vigorous kingdom of 
France. Instead of holding them asunder, and maintaining 
one as a check upon the other, he was crushed in the collision. 
Instead of preserving the independence of Italy by counteract- 
ing the predominance of the Spanish interest by the French, 
or at least by securing the liberties of the independent states, 
his temporizing policy could only cause the devastation of 
Italy by the successive armies of each potentate, the' subjuga- 
tion of all the free governments, and at length the plunder of 



168 



THE POPES OF THE 



[Essay III. 



Eome and his own captivity. Clement was in like manner in 
perpetnal embarrassment between the conflicting temporal and 
religious interests of the Papacy ; he was constantly obliged to 
sacrifice one to the other, and thus as constantly weaken both. 
The extraordinary difficulty of this Pope's position, and the no 
less extraordinary versatility of his character, are exemplified 
by two events in his reign. By means of the army which had 
ravaged Eome, and insulted his own sacred person, he destroyed 
the liberties of his native Florence ; and in the negotiations 
at Marseilles there is decisive evidence that he agreed with 
Francis to league with the Protestants of the North of Germany 
against his late intimate ally the Emperor. Clement VII. died, 
leaying the Vatican shorn of the allegiance of the northern 
kingdoms, of England, of considerable part of Grermany, and 
some cantons of Switzerland; — he died of mortification and 
anguish of mind, at beholding his nephews involved in a deadly 
quarrel for the sovereignty of Florence, obtained at the price 
of so much treachery and violence, and therefore so much de- 
basement of the religious influence of the Papal See. 

But the Eoman Catholic Eeligion possessed within itself an 
inherent vitality, which all the false politics of the Popes could 
not counteract. It may, we think, be asserted, that there is 
something more congenial to the Southern nations of Europe 
in the imaginative creed and the splendid ceremonial of 
Popery, than in the severer and more reasoning system of 
Protestantism. It is an inveterate and almost immemorial 
habit of mind. A vast mass of the population of the Eoman 
empire passed from Paganism into a half-paganized Christianity ; 
they retained, as has often been shown — never better than by 
Mr. Blunt — the forms of the ancient superstition, but kindled 
into reviving energy by the spirit of the new faith. The 
Northern nations, even if we leave constitutional temperament 
out of the question, had received the faith of the Grospel at a 
much later period ; they had retained less of their old religious 
practices ; and, though converted to the barbarous Christianity 
mi the Middle Ages, they had been converted by simple-, poor, 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 169 



and holy missionaries. Though no doubt the Catholic cere- 
monial was celebrated with much pomp in cities like Cologne 
and Mentz, yet among a poorer people it must in general have 
been less imposing ; at all events, it had not been so completely 
ingrained into the habits and feelings as in Italy and other 
parts of the South by centuries of undisturbed usage. 

However this may be, and the subject requires a more de- 
tailed and careful investigation, the convocation and the acts 
of the Council of Trent were at once a manifestation and a 
confirmation of the yet unshaken authority of the Roman 
See. If this famous council precluded, by its stern and irre- 
vocable decrees, any conciliatory union with the Protestants — 
if it erected an impassable barrier between the two conflict- 
ing parties in Christendom — it consolidated Roman Catholic 
Europe by an indissoluble bond of union ; it drew an im- 
pregnable wall around the more limited, but still extensive, 
dominion ; it fixed a definite creed, which, still more perhaps 
than the indefinite authority of the Pope, united the confederacy 
of the Catholic powers ; it established, in fact, a solemn recog- 
nition of certain clear and acknowledged points of doctrine, 
a kind of oath of allegiance to the unity of the Church and to 
the supremacy of Rome. 

But the active and operative principle of Roman Catholic 
regeneration was that of association in the Religious Orders. 
Loyola, after all, was the most formidable antagonist of Luther. 
These orders have been called the standing militia of the See of 
Rome ; nor was ever standing army more completely alienated 
from all civil interests, or more exclusively devoted to the service 
of the sovereign. That which in one sense was the weakness, 
the celibacy of all these orders, was in another the strength 
of Catholicism. Everything that was great, whether for good 
or for evil, was achieved by them, — the foreign missions, the 
education of the people, the Inquisition. Men could not 
have been found who, for a long continuance, would have 
executed the mandates of that fearful tribunal, unless they 
had been previously estranged from the common sympathies, 



170 THE POPES OF THE [Essay Hi. 

the domestic ties, the tender humanities of our nature. Loyola 
is sketched with great skill and judgment by M. Eanke. It 
is remarkable that a man calculated to give so powerful an 
impulse to the human mind should have arisen on that side 
exactly at this period, though in fact great exigencies almost 
invariably call forth great faculties. It is still more remarkable 
that from a mind so wild and disorganized should eventually 
have arisen the most rigidly disciplined society that was ever 
united by religious bonds. From the most illiterate of men, — 
for Loyola's reading in his earlier years was confined to the 
romances of chivalry, during the later to books of mystical 
devotion, — sprung rapidly up one of the most learned of com- 
munities, — one which had the sagacity to perceive that the 
only means to govern the awakening mind of Europe was to 
make itself master of the whole system of education. The 
foundation of the Jesuit order was no doubt the great antago- 
nist power called into action by the Eeformation ; and if 
ambition and success had not intoxicated the Jesuits, like all 
other great conquerors ; if they had known how to recede as 
well as how to advance ; if they had abstained or withdrawn, 
when the jealousy both of sovereigns and of people was 
awakened, from direct and ostentatious interference in the 
politics of the world, their empire would have been of longer 
duration ; they would not have fallen without the pity of one 
party, as well as the triumphant exultation of the other. 
G-anganelli acted in the best spirit of Christianity when he cut 
off his offending right hand, but with his right hand he muti- 
lated the Papacy of its main strength. 

This reorganization of Catholicism, though rapid, was gradual. 
The Popes but slowly and reluctantly abandoned their ambitious 
schemes of nepotism, and their fatal interference in the politics 
of Italy. The moral decency, the dignity of irreproachable 
lives, the solemn propriety of religious observances, which, in 
general, may be said to have from this time prevailed in the 
Papal court, grew up by degrees, and by degrees won back 
the respect which had been forfeited by the enormities of 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 171 



Alexander, by the martial violence of Julius II., and the 
Ejjicurean luxuries of Leo. The union of the new Catholic 
empire was not effected without fearful and perilous conflicts. 
To which section of Europe France was to belong was a ques- 
tion only decided after a long and bloody strife. The Papacy 
clung with convulsive tenacity to those parts of its dominions 
which it was finally compelled to abandon ; and did not com- 
plete the re-subjugation of the provinces which it retained 
without violent internal contests. Though the habits of the 
people, the activity of the monastic orders, and the rekindled 
zeal of all classes obtained at length the mastery — everywhere, 
even in Spain and Italy, there was much latent Protestantism 
to be exterminated. 

The character of the successive pontiffs could not but exer- 
cise an important influence at this crisis in the religious affairs 
of the world. Paul III., of the house of Farnese, succeeded 
the unfortunate Clement. The Roman blood of Paul III. dis- 
played itself in easy, frank, yet dignified manners. No Pope 
was ever more popular in Eome. He was superior to the 
narrow policy of filling the College of Cardinals with his own 
relatives and dependants ; he nominated distinguished men 
without their knowledge ; and when pressed by the Emperor to 
appoint two of his grandchildren to the cardinalate, Paul 
replied with Roman dignity, that 'the Emperor must first 
show precedents that children in their cradles had ever been 
promoted to that high function.' In his intercourse with the 
college he gave an unprecedented example of courteous conde- 
scension to their advice ; though he formed his own opinion, 
he listened with respectful attention to theirs. His situation 
required a temporizing policy, and that policy he pursued with 
consummate address, disconcerting the schemes and baffling 
the penetration of the most practised and subtle diplomatists. 
He had indeed affairs upon his hands which required dexterity 
and caution. He had to mediate peace between France and 
Spain ; to subdue the Protestants, to league Europe against 
the Turks, to reform the Church. But Paul III. had likewise 



172 



THE POPES OF THE 



[Essay III. 



a son, for whom lie was determined, like his ambitious prede- 
cessors, to form a principality ; he had grandchildren whom he 
hoped to ally with the royal families of Charles and of Francis. 
It was far from a wise compliance with the critical aspect of 
the times, when the Pope alienated a city of Romagna to 
endow the son of his own bastard offspring on his marriage 
with the bastard daughter of the Emperor, the widow of 
Allessandro de' Medici ; and when he sought the hand of the. 
Duke of Vendome for his grand-daughter, he betrayed at once 
his double and dissembling policy. That mediation, which in 
the head of the religious world might have looked dignified 
and imposing, sunk into a shifting and subtle scheme for the 
aggrandizement of his own family. With these irreconcilable 
and conflicting objects it was impossible for the Pope to main- 
tain an honest and straightforward policy. The head of the 
Catholic world, the Italian potentate, the father of Pier Luigi 
Farnese, could not but have conflicting and opposite interests ; 
and Paul could not consent to sacrifice the lower and less 
important to the one great and worthy object of pontifical 
ambition. 

The convocation of the Council of Trent was a wild and bold 
measure, though it might in some degree endanger the un- 
limited authority of the Popes. As a scheme for the voluntary 
reunion of the Christian world, it would afford but little hope 
to the most sanguine ; but we have before observed, as a con- 
solidation of the strength of Catholicism, as an ultimate and 
definite declaration of a common principle by the powers 
represented in the Council, it was of incalculable importance 
to the interests of the Papacy. The Council was opened, and 
at the same time Charles V. entered with the zeal of a common 
interest upon the war against the Protestants of Germany. 
The object of this important alliance was the reduction of 
the League of Smalcald to the civil and religious obedience 
claimed by the Emperor, and by the Council as the represen- 
tative assembly of Christendom. The Pope supplied money 
and troops. 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 173 



The war was successful beyond expectation. Charles at first gave 
himself over for lost, but in the most perilous situation he stood firm. 
At the close of the year 1546 he beheld the whole of Upper Germany 
in his power ; the cities and the princes of the empire surrendered with 
emulous alacrity ; the moment seemed to have arrived in which the 
Protestant party was totally subdued, and the whole nation might again 
become Catholic. ... At that moment what was the conduct of the 
Pope ? He recalled his troops from the Imperial army ; he prorogued 
the Council, which at that instant should have been accomplishing its 
object, and should have commenced with activity its work of pacifica- 
tion, from Trent, where it had been convoked at the request of the 
Germans, ostensibly because an epidemic malady had broken out there, 
to the second city of his own dominions, Bologna. 

His motives could not be doubted ; yet once again the poli- 
tical were in opposition and strife with the ecclesiastical 
interests of the Papacy. The Pope had never wished to see 
the whole of Germany conquered, and in real subjection to the 
Emperor. Far different had been his calculations. He had 
hoped that Charles V. might obtain some success which might 
turn to the advantage of the Church ; but he also hoped to see 
him so deeply plunged in difficulties, so entangled in the 
intricacies of his situation, that he would himself have full 
freedom to follow out his own schemes. Fortune lauohed to 
scorn all his policy. He dreaded the reaction of this overween- 
ing power of the Emperor in Italy ; the Council had become 
refractory; points had been mooted which menaced the un- 
limited supremacy of the Pope, 

It sounds strange, proceeds Ranke, but nothing is more true : at 
the moment when the whole of Northern Germany trembled at the 
approaching re-establishment of the Papal authority, the Pope felt 
himself as an ally of the Protestants. Paul betrayed his delight at the 
•advantages obtained by the Elector John Frederick over Prince 
Maurice ; Paul wished for nothing more earnestly than that the 
Elector might make head against the Emneror ; Paul expressly urged 
Francis I., who was now seeking to unite the whole world in a new 
league against Charles V., to support those who resisted him. He 
again thought it probable that the Emperor would be seriously embar- 
rassed with these obstacles, and the war protracted.' 5 'He thinks 

6 We must quote the authority on which this singular transaction rests : ' S. S. 
a entenclu que le Due de Saxe se trouve fort, clont elle a tel conlentomeut comme 



174 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. 

t Hs will be the case (writes the French minister) because he wishes 
it' Nor did this policy escape the sagacity of Charles V.. the 
object of His Holiness, from the beginning (he writes to his am- 
bassador), has been to entangle .us in this enterprise and then to 
desert us.' 

The parental feelings of Paul, wounded in the most cruel 
manner, finally determined his vacillating policy. Visions of 
the dukedom of Milan for his son, or for his grandson, had at 
one time floated before his dazzled sight. He had succeeded 
by a long train of dexterous manoeuvres, after unavailing 
resistance in his own College of Cardinals, in obtaining the 
investiture of Parma and Piacenza for Pier Luigi. M. Ranke 
draws a veil over the atrocity of this man's character. Botta, 
in his continuation of Guiociardmi, has been less scrupulous, 
and relates at full length, though with as much decency as the 
subject would bear, one crime, which, especially in the son of a 
Pope, struck the whole of Italy with horror, and was propa- 
gated with shuddering triumph among the Protestants of 
Germany. 

Paul III., a scholar and a learned theologian, was neverthe- 
less, according to the spirit of the age, a firm believer in 
astrology. 

No important sitting of the Consistory was appointed, no journey 
undertaken without choosing a fortunate day, without having ob- 
served the constellations. A treaty with France was broken off 
because there was no conformity between the nativities of the Pope 
and of the King. But ' one day the Pope, who thought that he was 
then placed beneath the most fortunate stars, and that he could con- 
iure down all the tempests which threatened him, appeared unusually 
cheerful at the audience ; he recounted the unfortunate passages of his 
life and compared himself in that respect with the Emperor Tiberius : 
on this very day, his son, the possessor of all his acquisitions, the heir 
of his fortunes, was fallen upon by conspirators in Piacenza, and 
murdered ! ' 

celuy qui estime le commun enuemy estre par ces moyeus fetenu d'executer «■ en- 
T 7t -onnoist-ou Men qu'il seroit utile sous main d'entretenn- ceux qui lul r<^ 

S« que ll ^ faire defense plus util,'-^ MorUtr « m 
(de France). Eibier, 1. 647. 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 175 

Ferdinand Gronzaga, the Imperial governor of Milan, was 
more than suspected of some concern in this murder. The 
Imperial troops instantly occupied Piacenza. M. Eanke, writing 
with the despatches of Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador at 
Eome, before him, states that no conception can be formed of 
the bitterness of feeling which now existed. Gronzaga gave out 
that two Corsican bravos had been seized, hired by the Pope to 
revenge upon his person the murder of Farnese. A general 
massacre of the Spaniards in Eome was apprehended. The 
Pope urged the King of France to make peace with the Protes- 
tant King of England, Edward VI., and to unite their forces 
against a worse enemy of the faith. Charles, in his turn, pro- 
tested against the acts of the Council of Bologna, and published 
the Interim. The end of all was that the Pope, thwarted, 
betrayed, almost sold to the Emperor by those very Farneses, 
his own family, for whom he had sacrificed so much of the true 
interests of the Popedom, and incurred so much obloquy, died of 
a broken heart ! 

Julius III., who ascended the pontifical throne with great 
expectations from his talents and character, dreamed away five 
important years in luxurious indolence. His nepotism was of 
a more modest and safer cast. The great offence, almost indeed 
the great event of his life, was the appointment of a young 
favourite of seventeen to the cardinalate. 

The election of the Cardinal Cervini, his assumption of the 
name of Marcellus, the hopes entertained from his mild and 
truly Christian disposition, with his earnest intention of urging 
a real reformation in the whole conduct of the Papal affairs, 
could not but call to the mind of a classical age the famous 
line of Virgil — 

Tu Marcellus eris. 

On his death the Cardinal Caraffa was invested with the 
tiara. Caraffa was seventy-nine years old, but the fire of youth 
still gleamed in his deep-set eyes. Caraffa was one of that 
religious community which had retired in austere seclusion 



176 



THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. 



from the unspiritual elegancies of the court of Leo. He had 
founded the order of the Theatines, a society of the strictest 
discipline and the most ardent devotion. The Inquisition had 
been established by his zeal— he had greatly contributed to the 
establishment of the high papal doctrines in the Council of 
Trent. Hitherto, the one absorbing exclusive passion of 
Caraffa's life had been the promotion of the Catholic religion, 
according to his own notions, in all its purity, in all its severity. 
He had now reached the station in which he could carry into 
effect all those reforms which he had urged with such sincere 
vehemence ; he might conduct the contest against the rebel- 
lious spirit of Protestantism with singleness of purpose, with the 
weight of a consistent, irreproachable, and austerely religious 
character. It might have seemed that a new Gregory IX. had 
risen to combat with all the pertinacity of conscientious old 
age the spirit of religious freedom, as heretofore the plenitude 
of Imperial power. At the age of eighty, Gregory had conducted 
a more than ten years' war against the enemies of the Church ; 
and the death of Frederick II. had given him the victory. 7 
Paul IV. ascribed his election to the Papacy, not to the will of 
the cardinals, but to the direct interposition of God ; and God, 
who had reserved him unto this time in the unbroken vigour 
of health, might prolong his valuable life till the final achieve- 
ment of his great design. Botta had sarcastically observed, 
that the first act of the humble founder of the Theatines, when 
he was asked in what manner the festival on his inauguration- 
should be conducted, was to reply, ' Like that of a great prince.' 
His coronation was celebrated with the utmost pomp and 
sumptuousness. But the zeal as well as the pride of Hilde- 
brand or Innocent revived in Paul IV. He instituted severe 
inquiries into every branch of the administration ; he appeared 
determined to remodel the whole Papal government somewhat 
in the spirit in which he would have renewed a monastic order, 
yet with a stern and serious resolution to extirpate all the 

> See our article on Von Raumer's History of the House of Hohenstauffen, Quart. 
Bev. vo\ li. p. 323, &c. 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUKIES. 177 



•abuses which had crept into the administration both of the 
civil and religious affairs of the see — to pluck up with a strong- 
hand the thistles and noxious weeds which had grown over the 
threshold of St. Peter's throne. 

At length there seemed to have arisen a Pope who would con- 
centrate all the undivided energies of a vigorous mind to assert 
the religious supremacy of Eome ; to recover those advantages 
which it had lost by its long condescension to the baser interests 
of worldly politics ; to withdraw altogether into its own sphere, 
and to conduct the negotiations with the great powers, which 
were now become absolutely necessary, with the sole object of 
re-establishing the Catholic dominion, or at least of preventing 
the further encroachments of Protestantism. But there was 
another passion in the breast of the aged Caraffa, secondary 
only to his zeal for the Catholic faith, or rather mingling up 
with it, and appearing in his distorted sight only a modification 
of the one great obligation imposed upon him by his office, 
and embraced with fanatic willingness. Paul loved the Church 
with all the devout ardour of a life consecrated to its service ; 
he hated the Spaniards with the hatred of a Neapolitan. There 
was little difficulty in permitting this passion to assume the 
disguise of a high religious motive. Caraffa was wont to speak 
of the Spaniards as an heretical race, a mongrel brood of Jews 
and Moors, the very dregs of the earth. The Caraffas had 
always belonged to the French party in Naples ; and Paul 
looked back to those better times when Italy might be com- 
pared to an instrument of four strings. These four strings 
were Milan, Venice, the Church, and Naples. The accursed 
quarrel of Alfonso and Ludovico the Moor had marred the 
harmony. He remembered, no doubt, that it was a Spanish 
army, an army at least under Spanish command, though chiefly 
composed of Imperialist Lutherans, which had given the fatal 
blow to the Papal majesty, plundered Eome, and incarcerated 
the successor of St. Peter. The whole policy of Charles V. 
might well excite the jealousy and resentment of one who con- 
sidered the first duty of princes to be the extirpation of heresy, 



17 g THE POPES OP THE [Essay IIL 

and the advancement of the Papal supremacy. The Emperor 1 
religious had been too often subordinate to his secular purposes ; 
he had made concessions, when the exigencies of the time 
demanded it, to the Reformers. When he acted against them 
with vigour, it was rather against refractory subjects of the 
empire, than rebels against the supremacy of the Pope, by 
whom indeed his measures had, as we have seen, been thwarted 
and crippled. The religious peace concluded by the Emperor 
and his brother Ferdinand for the pacification of G-ermany was 
the crowning act of treason and apostasy from the supreme 
dominion of the Church. Paul plunged headlong into the 
turmoil of European politics. Everywhere he allied himself 
with the French interest ; he seized the first opportunity of 
rupture with arrogant alacrity. He proclaimed himself the 
liberator of Italy, and, recalling the ancient feuds between the 
Empire and the Church, boasted that he would tread the dragon 
and the lion beneath his feet. 

Even the nepotism of Paul IV. was coloured and justified to 
his severe mind by these dominant passions. CarafTa had op- 
posed with indignant earnestness the elevation of the Farneses; 
he went on a pilgrimage to the seven churches at the time of 
the appointment of Pier Luigi to the principality of Parma, 
whether that he might not sanction by his presence this 
unworthy proceeding, or that he might deprecate the wrath of 
Heaven on account of this unhallowed spoliation of the Papal 
See. The Conclave heard with mingled astonishment and 
terror the nomination of his nephew Carlo CarafTa, a lawless 
and ferocious condottiere, a man, by his own description, 
steeped to the elbows in blood, to the cardinalate. His nephew 
had found the weak side of the zealous Pope. He had con- 
trived to be surprised keeling before a crucifix in an agony of 
remorse. But, as M. Ranke observes, the real bond of union 
was the common hatred of Spain. Carlo had served under the 
Emperor; his services had been ill-repaid, or at least not 
according to his own estimate of his military character. 
Charles had deprived him of a prisoner from whom he ex- 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUKIES. 179 

pected a large ransom, and prevented his obtaining a valuable 
office. In the impending war so experienced a soldier might 
be of great use, and Paul at once received his nephew into the 
most unlimited confidence, admitted him into the conduct of 
the most important temporal and even spiritual affairs. The 
influence of the cardinal reconciled him to his two other 
nephews, men of equally violent and unpopular characters. 
He determined to seize the castles of the Colonnas, which 
during the approaching war could not be left in the hands of 
those traitors to the Papal interests, and to place them in the 
safer custody of these men. One was created Duke of Palliano, 
the other Marquis of Montebello. 

War was inevitable; but how extraordinary, observes M. 
Eanke, was this war! The sternest bigot for Catholicism 
commanded the Spanish troops. The Duke of Alva, whom 
remorse and mercy never touched, advanced with awestruck 
and reluctant steps against the successor of St. Peter. Many 
towns of the Papal state surrendered, and Alva might have 
made himself master of Eome by one rapid march ; but he 
thought of the fate of the Constable Bourbon ; he saw himself 
committed in strife against the majesty of Heaven. For once 
his movements were slow and irresolute ; his conduct timid 
and indecisive. But who were the defenders of the sanctity 
of the Eoman See ? the guard of the most bigoted pontiff who 
had filled the throne of the Vatican? Caraffa had at first 
been popular in Eome. The inhabitants crowded to his 
standard; they mustered in splendid array, horse and foot; 
they received the Papal benediction, and Caraffa thought 
himself secure in their attachment and valour. At the first 
vague rumour of the advance of the enemy, the whole array 
melted away like a snowball, and the consecrated banners 
waved over the vacant place of arms. The effective strength 
of the Papal force was a body of 3,500 Grermans, Lutherans 
almost to a man, who, instead of disguising their faith, took 
every opportunity of breaking the fasts, insulting the cere- 
monies, and showing their utter contempt for the Catholic 

N 2 



Iqq THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. 

religion. The stern Pope's enemies were his best allies, his 
worst foes his own army. Charles Caraffa was in friendly 
correspondence with the Protestant leader, Albert of Bran- 
denburg ! Paul himself with Solyman the Turkish Emperor— 
< he invoked the succour of the Infidels against the Catholic 
king ! ' 

The war, protracted in Italy without any important success 
on either side, was decided in another quarter. The battle of 
St. Quentin broke the power of France, and the Pope stood 
alone, deprived of all support from his one great ally. Yet 
the terms of the peace corresponded with the singular character 
of the war. Every possible concession was made by the 
Spaniards. ' Alva visited Eome as a reverential pilgrim rather 
than as a conqueror ; and he who had never feared the face of 
man, trembled at the countenance of the aged Pope. The 
bitter disappointment at the failure of his magnificent schemes 
for the humiliation of Spain, and the restoration of the 
Papacy to its ancient predominance in the affairs of Europe, 
did not extinguish or subdue the energies of the hoary pontiff. 
He returned to his wiser plans for the reform of the Church. 
But to this end new and humiliating sacrifices were required- 
admissions of weakness and of error were to be made ; and 
through this severe trial Caraffa passed with resolution and self- 
commlnd bordering on magnanimity. Peace was restored, and 
the vocation of the voracious soldiers, his nephews, was over. 
The eyes of Paul were gradually opened to the licentiousness 
and enormity of their lives. In the open consistory, while he 
was reiterating with indignant vehemence the word Keform ! 
Eeform! a bold voice replied, 'The reform must begin at 
home.' The Pope endured the rebuke, and only ordered a 
stricter investigation into the lives of his nephews. The 
whole development of this affair is curious and interesting- 
we have only space for the result. No sooner was Paul con- 
vinced of the fatal, the horrible truth, than he submitted to 
the painful humiliation of solemnly protesting his ignorance 
of their guilt, their abuse of his weak and unsuspecting blind- 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 181 

ness. He tore at once all the kindly feelings of relationship 
from his heart, and in the stern sense of dnty trampled his 
nepotism under his feet. His nephews were condemned to 
the loss of all their offices, and to banishment to different 
places. The mother, seventy years old, bowed with sickness, 
threw herself in his way to plead for a mitigation of the 
sentence; the Pope passed by, reproving her in words of 
bitterness. The young Duchess of Montebello, on her return 
from Naples, fallen under the proscription which forbade every 
citizen of Borne from receiving any one of the family under 
his roof, in a wild and rainy night with difficulty found a 
lodging in a mean tavern in the suburbs. After all this severe 
struggle men looked to see the countenance of Paul depressed 
with sorrow ; they watched the effects of wounded pride and 
embittered feeling in his outward demeanour. No alteration 
was to be discerned. In his calm and unbroken spirit the 
pontiff pursued the ordinary routine of business: the am- 
bassadors could not discover that any event had taken place to 
unsettle the mind, or to disturb the serenity, of the Pope. 

The short remainder of his life was rigidly devoted to the 
reformation of the Church. The ceremonial was conducted 
with the utmost splendour; all the observances of religion 
maintained with solemn dignity. The severest discipline was 
reinforced on the monastic orders; unworthy members were 
cut off and chastised with unrelenting hand. The same atten- 
tion was paid to the improvement of the secular clergy ; the 
churches were provided with competent ministers ; and Paul 
contemplated the restoration of much of that power which 
had been gradually usurped and engrossed by the see of Eome 
to the episcopal order. The Inquisition, however, was that 
institution to which he looked with the most ardent hope for 
the restoration of Catholicism in all its ancient authority. His 
chief study was to enlarge and confirm the powers of that 
awful tribunal ; he assisted at its deliberations ; he was present 
at its auto-da-fes. This was the grand countervailing element 
which was to work out the rebellious spirit of Protestantism, 



182 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. 

at length to restore the unity of the dismembered Church, or 
at least to preserve inviolate that part of the edifice which yet 
remained unbroken. 

The measures of Paul IV. might command the awe of the 
Protestant, the respect of the Catholic, world ; but in Eome he 
had become most unpopular. He died commending the In- 
quisition to the assembled Cardinals. Instantly that he was 
dead, the populace rose, and, after every insult to his memory, 
proceeded to force the prisons of the Inquisition, to plunder 
and set fire to the building, to misuse the familiars of the 
tribunal. The statue of the Pope was thrown down — its head, 
encircled with the triple crown, dragged through the streets. 
M. Eanke has omitted a comic incident, mentioned, we believe, 
by Pallavicini. So odious was the name of the late Pope to the 
popular ear, that the vendors of common glass were obliged to 
give up their usual cry, 6 Bicchiere, caraffe ; ' and to cry instead, 
6 Bicchiere, ampolle ! ' 

Nothing could be more strongly contrasted than the birth 
and character of the new Pope, Pius IV., with that of his 
predecessor : — 

Paul IV., a high-born Neapolitan of the anti- Austrian faction, a 
zealot, a monk, and an inquisitor — Pius IV., a Milanese adventurer, 
through his brother (the famous conqueror of Cremona, the Marquis of 
Marignano), and through some other German relations, closely con- 
nected with the house of Austria, a civilian, of a free and worldly dis- 
position. Paul IV. had held himself at an unapproachable distance ; 
in the commonest business he would display his state and dignity. 
Pius was all good humour and condescension ; every day he was seen 
in the streets on horseback or on foot, almost without attendants ; he 
conversed freely with every one. 

His intercourse with the foreign ambassadors (M. Eanke quotes 
the Venetian correspondence) was easy, open, and almost 
familiar ; he. liked the straightforward and business-like manner 
of the Venetians, and, notwithstanding his Austrian prepos- 
sessions, he was annoyed by the unbending and dictatorial de- 
meanour of the Spanish ambassador Vasques. After attend- 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 183 
tog, dialing the whole day, with great assiduity, to the business 
of the See, 

he would retire at sunset to his country-house with a gay countenance 
and cheerful eye ; conversation, the table, and convivial diversion were 
his chief pleasures. Recovered from a sickness which had been consi- . 
dered dangerous, he mounted his horse immediately, rode to a house 
where he had lived when cardinal, tripped lightly up the steps-and 
' No, no,' said he, ' we are not going to die yet.' 

Yet the work of the reconstruction of the Papal power pro- 
ceeded during the reign of this more genial pontiff without 
interruption. One of his first acts was the reconvocation of 
the Council of Trent, and the final establishment of the 
decrees of that Catholic senate. The milder Pius in bis heart 
disapproved of the severities exercised by the Inqusition; be 
refused to attend on their deliberations, on the singular plea 
'that he was no theologian,' but he either scrupled or feared 
to oppose their proceedings: they were allowed free course m 
the extermination of heresy, and during the reign of Pms 
many illustrious victims perished at the stake, and the san- 
guinary persecutions of the Vaudois were carried on with 
unmitigated violence. 

With the Caraffas ceased the race of sovereign princes ele- 
vated on account of their relationship to the Popes. In the 
bloody execution of the guilty nephews of Paul, the reigmng 
pontiff only satisfied the demands of public justice. The 
Cardinal Caraffa had considered himself safe in his purple. 
One morning he was summoned from his bed-bis own confessor 
was not permitted to approach him. His conference with the 
priest who was allowed him was long, for in truth he had much 
to disburthen from bis conscience. He was rudely interrupted 
by his executioner-' Despatch, Monsignor,' said he, 'I have a 
great deal of business on my hands.' From this time nepotism 
held a lower flight : a large estate with a splendid palace in 
Borne is all that from henceforth perpetuates the family names 
of those who have filled the Papacy. Pius IV., freed from the 
charge of ambition, at the close of bis life was accused of 



184 



THE POPES OF THE 



[Essay III. 



avarice in favour of his descendants. But the nepotism of 
Pius, from the rare merit of those whom he distinguished with 
his favour, was highly beneficial to the interests of Catholicism. 
The promotion of Charles Borromeo, and of Serbelloni, a man 
of similar character, to the cardinalate, could not but command 
the general approbation. Few who have received the honours 
of canonization have lived so long in the grateful recollec- 
tion of their flock as St. Charles. By him the Catholicism of 
Lombardy was confirmed in the hearts of the people, through 
the mild virtues, the charitable activity and munificence, and 
the splendour of a life devoted to the religious improvement 
of his diocese and to the general happiness. Protestantism 
was repelled and extirpated by the more lawful weapons of 
genuine Catholic piety and beneficence. The influence of 
Carlo Borromeo upon the religion of Lombardy is probably not 
yet extinct. 

With Pius V. the Inquisition ascended the Papal throne. 
Michael Grhislieri, Cardinal of Alessandria, had been the head 
of that fearful tribunal in Eome. 

The total revolution in the state of Europe had now relieved 
the Pope from some of the difficulties of his temporal position. 
His political station, as the head of the Catholic confederacy, 
was at once designated, and established by his ecclesiastical 
interests. The balance of Europe was now no longer disturbed 
by the conflict of the two preponderating Catholic powers, France 
and Spain. The interests which divided the world were the 
Catholic and Protestant — with Spain at the head of one, and 
England, under Elizabeth, of the other. The prize of the con- 
test was France : the preponderance of the Calvinists or of the 
League seemed likely to decide the fate of Europe. Philip II. 
was the natural ally of the Pope, and from that alliance Pius never 
swerved in the least degree. As therefore nothing now inter- 
fered to distract the mind of the pontiff from the two exclusive 
objects of proper Papal ambition — the restoration of Catholi- 
cism in its pure religious vigour, and the repression of heretical 
opinions — Pius V. commenced the work with the utmost 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 



185 



singleness of purpose, and pressed it on with unbroken energy. 
Already, on his election, the partisans of the severest faction 
rejoiced at beholding the spirit of Paul IV. revived. But Pius 
had all the zeal, the severity, the piety of Paul without his 
pride ; he practised himself the lessons of humility, as well as 
those of asceticism, which he taught. 6 The people were en- 
raptured when they beheld him in the processions, barefooted, 
with his head uncovered, with the full expression of undis- 
sembled piety in his countenance, with his long snow-white 
beard ; they thought that Heaven had never vouchsafed so re- 
ligious a Pope, — they reported, that the very sight of him had 
converted Protestants. With all his austerity, the manners of 
Pius were affable and popular. His expenses were moderate ; 
his mode of living rigid and monkish ; his attendants were 
chiefly a few old and attached servants. Under the example 
and under the influence of such a pontiff, religion began to 
wear a more serious and devout aspect throughout Italy. He 
was seconded by the exertions of Carlo Borromeo at Milan, and 
of Griberti, the excellent Bishop of Verona. Venice, Florence, 
even Naples, became animated with an earnest zeal, not merely 
for the doctrines, but for the spirit of Catholic Christianity. 
The parochial cures were throughout placed on a more effective 
footing, and subjected to more rigid control. The monastic 
orders submitted to severer discipline. Spain followed the 
example of Italy, and throughout the two peninsulas the 
whole framework of the religious establishment was repaired 
with the utmost care — the authority of the Pope acknowledged 
and felt to their farthest bounds. 

As the head of the great Catholic confederacy, Pius V. had 
the honour of arresting the formidable progress of the Infidels, 
and repelling almost the last dangerous aggressions of the 
Turk upon Christendom. The Pope formed and consolidated 
that league between Spain, Venice, and other powers, which in- 
flicted the fatal blow on the naval superiority of the Ottomans 
at Lepanto. 

To Southern Europe a wise and useful head, to the Catholic 



THE POPES OP THE [Essay III. 

world a charitable— (he paid great attention to the temporal 
wants of the poor in Kome)— and a Chrstian prelate;— to 
Protestants of every class and degree, Pius V. was a Dominican 
and an Inquisitor, He extorted from the gratitude of Cosmo, 
Grand Duke of Florence, from the respect even of Venice, men 
of the highest rank and attainments to suffer the extreme 
penalties of heresy. Carnesecchi, notwithstanding his lofty 
station and character, was surrendered to the officers of the 
Inquisition, and perished in the flames. The Venetians, rigid 
as they had ever been, and as they still were, in the main- 
tenance of religious independence, yielded up Guide Zanetti of 
Fano to the same tribunal and the same end. The fate of 
Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, the first ecclesiastic in Spain, 
is well known. Though a zealous advocate of Catholicism, an 
active supporter of all the religious reforms in the Church, six- 
teen latent clauses were detected in his works which appeared 
to favour the Protestant doctrines : he was saved, indeed, by 
being sent to Eome, from the persecutions of his personal 
enemies, but he only changed the scene of his tragic destiny. 
The purification of Spain, by a constant succession of auto-da- 
fes, received the full sanction, the highest approbation, of the 
Pope. The bull which he thundered out against our Elizabeth 
on her accession displayed his strong abhorrence of heresy, at 
the sacrifice perhaps of real policy. But it cannot be supposed 
that he entertained the least doubt of his power to absolve 
subjects from their allegiance to an heretical sovereign, one 
especially of such doubtful descent according to the canon 
law and the decrees of Eome. In the wars of the League, Pius 
is said to have reproved the remissness of those who did not 
slay their heretical enemies outright; and the honour of the 
consecrated hat and sword, bestowed on the Duke of Alva, shows 
how little remorse he felt for the barbarities perpetrated m 
the Low Countries. 

How strange an union of singleness of purpose, magnanimity, 
austerity, and profound religious feeling, with sour bigotry bitter 
hatred, and bloody persecution ! In this spirit lived and died F*ml V . 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 



187 



When he felt the approach of death, he once more visited the seven 
churches, to bid farewell, as he said, to those sacred places ; three times 
he kissed the lowest steps of the Scala Santa. He had at one time 
promised not only to expend the whole treasures of the Church, not 
excepting the chalices and crucifixes, on an expedition against 
England, but even to appear in person at the head of the army. On 
his way some of the banished Catholics of England presented themselves 
before him ; he said, 1 he wished that he could pour forth his blood for 
them.' He spoke of the League as an affair of the highest moment ; 
he had left everything in preparation which could insure its success ; 
the last money that he issued was appointed for this purpose. The 
phantoms of these enterprises haunted him at his last moments. He 
had no doubt of their eventual success. ' God,' he said, ' will of the 
stones raise up the man necessary for this great end.' 

M. Eanke has interposed between the death of Pius V. and 
the accession of Gregory XIII. a chapter of remarkable interest, 
relating to the internal state and government of the Papal 
territory and the finances of the Roman See. As the foreign 
resources of the Vatican began to fail, one-half of Europe to 
refuse all tribute to the Papacy, and even the Catholic king- 
doms to furnish more scanty and hard-wrung contributions, 
the territory of the See, which by constantly involving the 
Pope in the local dissensions of Italy, had formerly been a 
burthen rather than an advantage, now became an important 
source of independence and strength. The affairs of Italy 
gradually settled down into a regular political system ; the 
boundaries of the different states were fixed by treaties ; the 
ambition of the Popes — as long as the power of Spain, of 
Venice, and of the newly created Grand Dukedom of Florence, 
maintained the existing order of things — could scarcely look 
forward to an enlargement of territory. The Papal dominions, 
in point of productiveness, prosperity, and the valour and in- 
dependence of the population, were looked upon with wonder 
and envy by the ambassadors of Venice. Romagna exported 
corn to Naples and to Florence. The cities of Eomagna long 
maintained their old municipal freedoms ; they were governed 
by their own communes, under their priors or other native 
dignitaries ; they levied their own troops, fought under their 



188 



THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. 



own banners, and administered justice on their own authority. 
The country was occupied by the barons in their castles, who, 
however lawless marauders on the estates of an enemy, lived 
in a kind of patriarchal relationship with their own peasants 
—they protected without oppressing them. In some districts 
were razees of free peasants, the proprietors and cultivators of 
the soil. But in all these classes, in city, castle, and free land, 
the fatal evil of the times, party feud and hostility, endangered 
peace and independence. In every town there was a Guelph 
and Ghibelline faction. The barons hated each other with 
all the treasured animosity of hereditary feud ; even the free 
peasants were disturbed by the same disorganizing passions. 
These peasants were descended from the same stock, lords 
paramount in their villages, all armed, dexterous in the use 
of the harquebuss. Of these wild communities, < the Cavina, 
the Scarbocci, the Solacoli were Ghibellines; the Manbelli, 
the Cerroni, and the Serra, which comprehended the two races 
of the Einaldi and Navagli, Guelphs.' These factions enabled 
the government to introduce, particularly into the cities, first 
a powerful influence, at length an arbitrary authority. In the 
cities the artisans and trades pursued their callings with 
industrious and undiverted assiduity. The municipal offices 
were in the hands of the nobili, who had nothing to do but 
to quarrel, and were much more jealous of increasing the 
power of the hostile faction than that of the Papal resident. 
The Pope thus at length found the opportunity of extinguish- 
ing altogether the liberties of many of the most important 
cities. 

But, after all, the great secret of the prosperity of the 
Eoman state was its immunity from direct taxation. While all 
the other provinces of Italy were burthened with the most 
vexatious exactions, the Eoman city and the Roman peasant 
left it to Catholic Europe to maintain the dignity of the 
Eoman See. The revenue of the Papacy was the direct and 
indirect tribute of Christendom. The unpopularity of the 
foreigner, Adrian of Utrecht, was greatly increased by the 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 189 

necessity under which he found himself, from the prodigality 
of Leo, of imposing a small hearth-tax on his Eoman subjects. 
It is singular that to the Papal plan of finance Europe owes 
the advantage of the whole system of exchanges, and the more 
questionable invention of public debts. Only a small part of 
the tribute of the world found its way into the Papal coffers, 
but it constituted a perpetual fund upon which money could 
be raised to an enormous amount. 

The sale of offices was the principal immediate source of the 
Pope's revenue. This singular mode of anticipating income by 
loans upon future receipts was of early date, and carried to an 
enormous extent by the more prodigal Popes. 

According to a trustworthy register, belonging to the Cliigi palace, 
in the year 1471, there were about six hundred and fifty purchaseable 
offices, the income of which was estimated at near 100,000 scudi. They 
are almost all procurators, registrars, ahbreviators, correctors, notaries, 
writers, even messengers and doorkeepers, the growing number of which 
constantly augmented the expense of a bull or of a brief. 

Sixtus IV. created whole colleges, the offices in which were 
sold for 200 scudi a piece. These colleges had sometim es 
strange names, e. g. a college of one hundred janissaries, 
which were named for the sum of 100,000 scudi, and their 
pensions were assigned from the produce of the bulls and 
annates. Sixtus IV. sold everything. Innocent VIII., who 
was reduced to pawn the Papal tiara, founded another college 
of twenty-six secretaries for 60,000 sc. Alexander VI. named 
eighty writers of briefs, each of whom paid 750 scudi for his 
place. Julius II. added a hundred writers of the archives at 
the same price. Julius created other offices with pensions on 
the customs and treasury. The nourishing state of agriculture 
enabled him to borrow in the same manner upon the excess of 
produce. He founded a college of one hundred and forty-one 
presidents of the market — annona. Leo, who was said to have 
spent the income of three papacies — viz. that of Julius II., who 
left a considerable treasure, his own, and that of his successor 
— went on in the same course, but with increased recklessness. 



190 



THE POPES OP THE [Essay III. 



He created twelve hundred new places : even the nomination 
of cardinals was not unproductive. The whole number of 
taxable posts in his time was two thousand one hundred and 
fifty: their yearly income was calculated at 320,000 sc., a heavy 
burden to church and state. These offices, however, expired 
with the life of the holders. 

Clement VII. in his pressing distress first created a perma- 
nent debt a monte non vacabile — which was charged at ten 

per cent, interest on the customs. The montisti, or holders of 
these securities, formed a college. But from the time of 
Adrian's first hearth-tax, the golden days of freedom from 
taxation began to disappear to the subjects of the Roman state. 
As Europe withheld or diminished its tribute, no alternative 
remained for the pontiff but direct taxation on his own terri- 
tory. As the head of Catholicism in Southern Europe, the 
Pope found his foreign income more and more precarious, 
while his expenses grew larger. In the internecine war with 
Protestantism prodigality seemed a virtue ; liberal assistance 
was rendered in Ireland and in other countries where the 
Catholics endeavoured to regain their lost ground from the Pro- 
testant governments. Thus Romagna gradually lost the few re- 
mains of its independence, and by degrees every article of life 
became subject to direct impost. This small territory had, in 
fact, to support almost entirely one of the most expensive mon- 
archies of Europe— one which, by its very character, involved 
a constant correspondence with every court in Christendom, 
which required secret service-money to an unlimited extent, 
and in the Catholics exiled from Protestant countries had 
objects of charity whose claims couid not with the severest 
economy be altogether eluded. The Papal state, from the 
richest and most productive part of Italy, sunk in consequence, 
though by slow degrees, to what it now is, an ill-cultivated, 
unwholesome, and comparatively desert tract. 

Gregory XIII. (Buoncompagno), had his lot been cast in an 
earlier period of the pontificate, might perhaps have shown by 
his life his right to his family name. Before he entered into 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 191 

orders he had had a natural son; and was considered rather 
inclined to the gayer manners of his Milanese patron Pius IV., 
than to those of his more rigid immediate predecessor. But 
the religious feeling predominant in Eome overawed the natural 
disposition of Gregory : instead of relaxing, he rivalled the 
austerities of the late Pope ; he was irreproachable in his life ; 
scrupulous in bestowing his preferment. Though he advanced 
his son to a high rank, he allowed him no improper influence ; 
to the rest of his relations he was beneficent, but moderate in 
his grants. Financial embarrassments, incident to his lavish 
expenditure in the support of the Catholic cause, involved him 
in inextricable difficulties, and threw the whole of Eomagna 
into a state of predatory insurrection. Money was absolutely 
necessary, but the Pope would not purchase it at the price of 
spiritual concessions or indulgences ; new offices could not be 
created, new imposts would not be borne. The expedient 
which occurred was the resumption of the fiefs held of the See, 
on account of some informality in the grant, or neglect in 
the performance of the stipulated service. Every paper was 
searched, every record investigated, and, by some flaw or other, 
the nobles saw themselves ejected from their castles, and 
deprived of property which their families had possessed for 
centuries. Gradually a spirit of resistance sprung up ; the old 
factions began to revive with greater fury in all the towns ; the 
expelled proprietors turned captains of banditti. The whole 
province was a scene of anarchy, robbery, and bloodshed. Not 
a subsidy could be obtained, not a tax levied. The Pope sent 
his son Giacomo with an armed force to quell the insurrection, 
but without success. At length the most daring and powerful 
of these bandit chieftains, Piccolomini, bearded Gregory in 
Rome itself. He presented a petition for absolution; the 
Pope shuddered at the long catalogue of murders recorded in 
the paper. But there was only this alternative— his son must 
be slain by, or must slay Piccolomini, or the pardon must be 
granted. The absolution was sealed and delivered. 6 Weary 
at length with life, and in a state of the utmost weakness, the 



192 



THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. 



aged Pope looked to heaven, and said-" Lord, thou wilt arise, 
and have mercy upon Sion." ' 

Never was a strong arm more imperiously, required to wield 
the sceptre of the Papacy. The wild days of the darker ages 
seamed about to return, when a lawless and bandit populace 
drove the Pope from his capital, or insulted and slew him m 
its streets. Acts of violence were perpetrated in open day m 
Rome itself; four cardinals' houses were plundered. . The son 
of a swineherd, who himself as a boy had followed the lowly 
occupation of his father, was raised to the pontifical throne, 
and order was almost instantaneously restored; the Papal 
government assumed a regularity and vigour which it had not 
displayed in its most powerful days. The low origin and the 
early life of Sixtus V. are well known ; and the arts by which 
he obtained the summit of his ambition have been minutely 
described, but with more cleverness than veracity. We know 
nothing in the range of Italian comic writing more spirited 
and amusing than Gregorio Lett's description of the Cardinal 
Montalto for fifteen years playing the infirm old man, tottering 
along the streets upon his crutch, with a deep and hollow cough, 
a failing voice, and every symptom of a broken constitution 
and premature decrepitude. The scene in the Conclave, when, 
on the instant of his election, he dashed his crutch to the 
ground, sprung up at once to his natural height, and thun- 
dered out (entonava) the Te Deum, to the astonishment and 
dismay of the assembled cardinals ;-his reply to the Cardinal 
de' Medici, who expressed his surprise at the sudden change m. 
his look, which had been downcast, and was now erect and 
lofly : _< While I was cardinal, my eyes were fixed upon the 
earth', that I might find the keys of heaven ; now I have found 
them, I look to heaven, for I have nothing more to seek on 
earth'- ' all the minute circumstantialness of his manner, speech, 
and gesture, is like one of Scott's happiest historical descrip- 
tions but we fear of no better historical authority than the 
fictions of our great novelist. Ranke says, that there is not 
much truth in these stories : we could have wished that he had 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 193 



given us his opinion, as to how much ; we should be glad to 
know whether there is any confirmation in the contemporary 
documents which he has searched, for the account of the pro- 
ceedings in the Conclave, which Leti has drawn with such 
unscrupulous boldness. It is clear that powerful foreign 
influence was employed in favour of the Cardinal Montalto ; 
we were before aware (if we remember right, from Gralluzzi's 
work) that Tuscany contributed powerfully to his elevation. 
It is probable that, in the exigencies of the times, the vigour of 
his age — (he was sixty-four at the time of his election) — rather 
than simulated infirmity and premature old age, recommended 
him to the Cardinals, who must have been almost trembling for 
their personal safety. 

If they expected a vigorous administration from Sixtus V. 
they were not mistaken in their choice. The new Pope pro- 
claimed and displayed at once the inexorable rigour of his 
justice. On the day of his coronation four bodies of offenders 
against his police regulations were seen on a gallows on the 
Castle of Angelo. He disbanded most of the soldiers raised by 
Gregory; he reduced the number of sbirri. But he made each 
baron and each commune responsible for every act of violence 
committed in their district. He made the commune, or the 
relatives of the bandit, pay the price which had been laid upon 
the head of each chieftain, instead of defraying this charge 
from the treasury. He sowed dissension among the bands, by 
offering a free pardon to any accomplice who should bring in 
the body or the head of his comrade. He is even said to have 
gone so far as to destroy a whole troop, by throwing in their 
way a caravan of poisoned provisions, — an event which gave 
the Pope great satisfaction ! He made no distinction of ranks ; 
the noble bandit with difficulty obtained the privilege of being- 
strangled in prison instead of being hanged coram populo. 
In less than a year the roads were safer in the Papal territory 
than in any other part of Europe. Sixtus, by trivial conces- 
sions, conciliated the good will of his powerful neighbours, 
who had been alienated by the captious and unwise policy of 





194 THE POPES OP THE [Essay III. 

Gregory. They had hitherto harboured the robbers of the 
Papal states. Tuscany, Venice, Spain, now vied with each 
other in surrendering them to the Pope's relentless justice. 
The King of Spain gave orders that the decrees of the Pope 
ehould be as much respected in Milan as in Eome. Sixtus 
laboured with as much zeal and success in the restoration of 
prosperity as of peace. The privileges of the towns were 
enlarged. Ancona, of which the commerce had been almost 
ruined by impolitic regulations, was especially favoured ; agri- 
culture and manufactures were fostered with the utmost care. 
Sixtus has enjoyed the credit of putting an end to the fatal 
effects of nepotism, by interdicting the alienation of ecclesias- 
tical estates. This, however, was the act of Pius V. On his 
own nephews Sixtus bestowed— on one the purple, on the other 
a marquisate ; but he allowed no influence to any living being. 
He was the sole originator, depositary, and executor of his own 
counsels. 

In the Chigi palace there is an account-book belonging to 
Sixtus V., containing memoranda of all his personal property 
and expense while a monk. It contains a list of his books, 
whether in single volumes or bound together ; in short, his 
whole household expenses. It relates how his brother-in-law 
bought twenty sheep, which young Peretti paid for by instal- 
ments; and how at length, from his rigid savings, to his 
astonishment he found himself master of two hundred florins 
Sixtus the Pope practised the same severe economy. His firs 
ambition was to leave a treasure, which was only to be employed 
in times of the utmost emergency, and on objects of the highest 
spiritual importance: these objects he himself accurately 
defined. ' The temple of the Lord,' he said, 4 was never without 
such treasure.' M. Eanke has, however, destroyed much of the 
blind admiration which, looking only to these outward circum- 
stances, has considered the administration of Sixtus a model of 
financial wisdom. This treasure was collected by the old, igno- 
rant, and extravagant expedients for raising money— the sale of 
offices, the creation of new monti or debt, the most minute 



v 

i 



Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 195 

and vexatious taxation on all the necessaries of life. Our author 
conceives that the amount of the treasure left by Sixtus V. 
was not more than equivalent to the produce of these new and 
oppressive burthens. It is intelligible that 6 an overplus of 
revenue should be collected and treasured up ; it is the common 
course that loans should be made, to supply immediate exigen- 
cies ; but that loans should be made and burthens imposed to 
shut up a treasure in a castle for future wants, this is indeed 
extraordinary. But it is precisely this which the world has 
admired so much in Sixtus V.' The fact is, that the possession 
of a treasure was so rare among the exhausted and impoverished 
kingdoms of Europe, that he who possessed one became an 
object of envy and wonder, without any inquiry at what cost it 
had been acquired. 

The concluding chapters of the present volume trace, with 
equal truth and ingenuity, the effects of this catholic religious 
revival on the poetry, the arts, and the manners of the Roman 
court. Tasso was the poet ; the Bolognese school, the Caracci, 
with their Pietas and Ecce Homos, Gruido with his Viroins 
Domenichino with his Saints, Gruercino with his exquisite 
forms, but at times his too minutely and horribly real martyr- 
doms, were the painters, of the age. Palestrina was the 
musician, in whose hands church-music became again full of 
deep feeling and religious passion. The study of the antique 
gave way to this new religious tone. Sixtus, in his magnificent 
embellishments of the city, looked on the monuments of heathen 
Rome with the soul of a Franciscan ; he relentlessly destroyed 
whatever stood in his way, or offered valuable materials. All 
that remained he Christianized. The Trajan and Antonine 
pillars were surmounted with statues of St. Peter and St. Paul. 
At the same time the College of Cardinals became a body of men 
no less distinguished by their irreproachable lives than by their 
skill and dexterity in worldly business. Men like Philippo 
Neri, with the simplicity of children, the kindness of real 
Christians, the sanctity of angels, gave the tone to religious 
feeling. Vast learning, but all deeply impressed with this 

o 2 



19 g THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. 

ecclesiastical spirit, was acquired and displayed. The works of 
Bellarmine and Baronius show at once the labour and the 
tendency of the times. The court itself assumed its singular 
character of pomp and piety, intrigue and austerity ; the centre 
of profound Catholic religious feeling became the theatre of 
insatiable spiritual ambition. When the son of a swineherd 
was Pope, who might not rise to any eminence ? When that 
swineherd's son filled the Papal See with so much vigour and 
dignity, how easily might pride mistake its aspirations for those 
of zeal for the Church ! Every one, therefore, was on the look- 
out for advancement; from all parts of Europe flowed in 
candidates for ecclesiastical distinction; and learning, and 
morals, and religion itself became the means and the end of 
universal emulation. Thus concludes Professor Eanke :— 

The newly-awakened spirit of Catholicism gave a new impulse to 
all the organs of literature and art, even to life itself. The Curia as 
equally devout and restless, spiritual and warlike-on one sme full of 
dignity, pomp, and ceremony-on the other, nnequalled for calculating 
prudence and unwearied ambition. Its piety and its ambit.ous spirit 
of enterprise, both resting on the notion of an exclusive faith, conspired 
together to the same end. Thus Catholicism made another attempt to 
subjugate the world. 

We shall watch with anxious expectation for the appearance 
of M. Kanke's successive volumes, fully convinced that nothing 
can proceed from his pen which will not deserve the attention 
of the European public. From his age (he is, we believe, still 
a young man) we may look for large accessions to our historical 
knowledge, and the style of the present volume is a safe pledge 
that his future works will be as agreeable in manner as valuable 
in matter. 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 197 



IV. 

THE POPES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES} 

(April, 1837.) 

We redeem the pledge given in a former Number by in- 
troducing as early as possible, to our reader's notice, the 
two concluding volumes of Professor Kanke's History of the 
Popes. The work proceeds to its close with the same calm 
impartiality in its judgements ; the original documents are as 
copious, and, in some respects, as curious ; the style maintains 
its ease and vivid perspicuity. The Popes, indeed, of this later 
period are men of less marked and commanding character than 
the Pauls and the Sixtus V. of the former century. They are 
decent and dignified, sometimes learned, ecclesiastics ; but they 
have ceased to sway the destinies of Europe by the force of 
their individual character. Though their religion, particularly 
during the first half of the seventeenth century, advances in 
the reconquest of the world with unexpected and, as far as 
the popular histories in our own language extend, unmarked 
success, it is not the masterly combination of measures, the 
subtle policy or the burning zeal which emanate from the 
head of Koman Catholic Christianity ; it is the extraordinary 
activity of the allies which spring up on all sides ; the ad- 
venturous spirit, the profound sagacity and the inflexible 
perseverance of the regular clergy, chiefly the Jesuits ; the self- 
developed, and self-governed energy of the religion itself, rather 

' Die Eomische P'dpste, ihre Kircke unci ihre Staat im sechszehnten und sieben- 
zehitm Jahrhundert, Von Leopold Ranke. Eande 2 und 3. Berlin, 1836. 



198 



THE POPES OF THE 



[Essay IV. 



than an impulse communicated from the centre of government 
— which commands and achieves that success. The effective 
leader in this great war of reprisal and reconquest against 
Protestant Europe is not so much the Pope as the head of the 
Jesuit order. 

As temporal princes, the Popes gradually retired within the 
narrow sphere of their own dominions ; they no longer, except- 
ing in one or two fortunate acquisitions, sought to aggrandize 
themselves at the expense of their neighbours ; they ceased to 
disturb the peace of Italy, much less of Europe, by schemes of 
personal ambition ; they were sufficiently occupied by the in- 
creasing financial embarrassments of their own home territory 
— in maturing that progressive system of disproportioned tax- 
ation and mismanagement, which has reduced the rich and 
fertile Campagna to a wilderness or a morass. Even their 
nepotism was content with a humbler flight : it was now enough 
that a large estate and a splendid palace in Rome perpetuated 
the family name of each successive pontiff. A new aristocracy 
gradually arose in Rome, to compete in wealth and magnificence 
with the old Colonnas and the feudal nobles of the former 
centuries. Besides its churches, the Vatican and the Quirinal, 
modern Rome owes most of its splendour to the mansions of 
the Barberinis, the Borgheses, the Rospigiiosis, the Ludovisis, 
the Albanis. 

The descent, however, to this state of comparative peace and 
insignificance was slow and gradual. The great impulse of re- 
action against Protestantism was given during the pontificate 
of Sixtus V. Nor were the immediate successors of Sixtus men 
wanting either in vigour or individuality of character. The 
prosperous state of the religion could not but increase the 
influence, and add dignity to the name, of the ruling pontiff. 
As Southern Europe prostrated itself again at the foot of the 
Papal throne, the consciousness of his reviving power restored 
something of the ancient majesty to the demeanour of the 
sovereign, and summoned up all the strength and energy of his 
peculiar character. At such times an inferior man could not 



L 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 199 

attain that commanding eminence, nor a man of superior mind 
and resource refrain from putting forth all the force of his 
intellectual faculties, to consolidate his growing authority. 
He could not but feel the increasing responsibility of his 
station : the dangers through which the Papacy had passed, the 
difficulties from which it seemed triumphantly emerging, 
demanded his entire and exclusive devotion to the interests of 
the See, connected as they were with those of Eoman Catholi- 
cism, — in the opinion of the Eoman Catholic, with those of 
Christianity itself. 

The pontificate of Sixtus V. is the period of the great crisis 
in the history of the Papacy ; the turning-point in the im- 
perilled fortunes of the Eoman Catholic system. The extent 
to which Protestantism had carried its encroachments ; the depth 
to which the Papal power had been undermined, is estimated 
by Mr. Eanke, on the testimony of contemporary documents, to 
which we cannot deny great weight and authority, in terms 
which will surprise many readers of history. We transcribe an 
account of the losses suffered by the Popedom, written from 
Eome itself, by Tiepolo, the envoy from Venice : — 

Speaking only of those nations of Europe, which not only rendered 
their allegiance to the Pope, but which followed in every respect the 
rites and usages of the Roman Church, celebrating their offices in the 
Latin language— it is known that England, Scotland, Denmark, Norway, 
Sweden, in short, all the Northern nations, are estranged from the Papal 
See ; Germany is almost entirely lost ; Bohemia and Poland to a great 
degree infected ; the Low Countries of Flanders so thoroughly corrupted, 
that the violent remedies of the Duke of Alva will scarcely restore them 
to their former health ; finally, France, through these evil humours, is 
everywhere full of confusion : so that nothing remains to the pontiff in 
a sound and secure state, except Spain and Italy, with a few islands, and 
those parts of Dalmatia and Greece possessed by your serene highnesses. 
— Ranke, vol. ii. p. 18. 

This was not the language of alarm and despondency—it was 
the grave report of a sagacious Venetian to the Signory. The 
details amply bear out the general statement of the Venetian. 
It is not necessary to speak of England, Scotland, or the Scan- 



200 



THE POPES OP THE 



[Essay IV. 



dinavian kingdoms, which had burst the yoke for ever. On 
the shores of the Baltic, Prussia took the lead in an extensive 
secularization of the church property. The condition of the 
subjection of Liefland to Poland was the free use of the Con- 
fession of Augsburg. In the great cities in Polish Prussia the 
Lutheran rites were established by express charters ; the smaller 
cities were secured against the encroachments of the powerful 
bishops. In Poland the greater part of the nobility had em- 
braced Protestant opinions. During the reign of Sigismond 
Augustus, himself a Eomanist, but who looked with indifference 
on the progress of Protestantism among his subjects, the Pro- 
testants gained possession of some of the episcopal sees, and 
thus obtained a majority in the senate. In Hungary, Ferdi- 
nand I. in vain endeavoured to force the Diet into resolutions 
hostile to Protestantism. 6 In the year 1554, a Lutheran was 
chosen palatine of the kingdom. Transylvania severed itself 
entirely from the see of Kome ; the property of the Church was 
confiscated by a formal decree of the states in 1556 ; the crown 
seized the larger part of the tithes.' But it was in Grermany 
that Protestantism had advanced most remarkably beyond the 
limits which now separate the rival religions. The existing 
Protestant States are but a remnant of the dominion which the 
Eeformation had once wrung from its adversary. The great 
prelates in Franconia had in vain opposed its progress. In 
Wurtzberg and Bamberg by far the greater part of the nobles 
and the officers of state, even those in the service of the bishops, 
at least the majority of the magistrates and burghers of the 
cities, and the mass of the country-people, had gone over to 
Protestantism : in the district of Bamberg there was a Luthe- 
ran preacher in almost every parish. In Bavaria the greater 
part of the nobility professed the Protestant doctrines ; the 
cities manifested the same inclination ; the Duke was obliged, 
at a diet in 1556, to submit to conditions of which it was the 
evident tendency to establish the Confession of Augsburg ; nay, 
the Duke himself was not so decidedly averse to the change, 
as to refuse sometimes to attend a Protestant preacher. In 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 201 



Austria the revolution had gone still further : — the nobility- 
went to study in Wittenberg ; the colleges of the country were 
filled with Protestants — 4 it was calculated that not more than 
the thirtieth part of the inhabitants were Eomanists.' (We 
should have wished that Professor Eanke had quoted his author- 
ity for this startling fact.) The powerful Archbishop of Saltz- 
burg in vain succeeded in prohibiting the public preaching 
of Lutheranism within his territory. In Saltzburg itself the 
mass was neglected ; neither fasts nor holidays observed. 

The general discontent reached the mountainous districts. In Rauris 
and Gastein, in St. Veit, Tamsweg, Rastadt, the country-people loudly 
demanded the cup in the sacrament. As it was refused, they kept 
away altogether from the sacrament. They no longer sent their 
children to the school. In one church a peasant rose up and exclaimed 
to the preacher, ' Thou liest ! ' — the peasants preached to each other. 
It can be no matter of surprise that in the abandonment of all regular 
worship, which thus arose out of the conversion to the new doctrines, 
the wildest and most fantastic opinions should spring up in these Alpine 
solitudes. 

The contrast of these statements is peculiarly striking to 
those who have observed how deeply and devoutly the Eomish 
opinions and ceremonies appear at present to be observed in all 
these dominions of Austria. 

The splendour and the- power of the great spiritual elector- 
ates on the Ehine was controlled by the avowed Protestantism 
of the nobility, who extorted full liberty of religious worship for 
their vassals. Even under the very shadow of the cathedrals, 
in the cities which were the residence of those magnificent 
prelates, the Protestant party grew and flourished. In Cologne, 
in Treves, in Mentz, the Italian envoys of the Pope wondered 
at the inactivity of the prelates, whose very councils were in- 
fected by ' furious heretics ' (de' piu arrabbiati heretiei). 
Westphalia was in the same state — in Paderborn the Protestant 
party made an ostentatious display of their superiority; the 
Duke of Cleves, though in other respects Eomish, received the 
sacrament under both forms in his private chapel. 



202 



THE POPES OP THE 



[Essay IV. 



In short (says Eanke), from the east to the west, from north to south 
throughout Germany, Protestantism had a decided superiority. The 
nobility had been attached to it from the beginning ; the civil officers 
(beamtenstand), already a numerous and distinguished body, were 
educated in the new opinions; the common people would no longer 
hear of certain doctrines, such as purgatory, or certain ceremonies, such 
as pilgrimages, &c. A Venetian ambassador calculates in the year 1558 
that in all Germany not more than a tenth part of the inhabitants were 
true to the ancient faith. 

The ecclesiastical dignities were not secure against Protes- 
tant encroachment. In direct opposition to the articles of the 
religious peace, which enacted the forfeiture of his dignity by 
any spiritual prince who should abandon the ancient faith — 
many chapters, having become Protestant, did not scruple to 
elect Protestant bishops— they only guarded against the mitres 
becoming hereditary in certain families. 

A prince of the House of Brandenburg obtained the archiepiscopal 
see of Magdeburg, a Lunenburg that of Bremen, a Brunswick that of 
Halberstadt. The bishoprics of Lubeck, Verden, Minden, and the 
abbey of Quedlinberg came into the possession of the Protestants. 

The education was almost entirely in their hands. Founda- 
tions made expressly for the propagation of the Eomish faith 
were in a few years crowded by Lutherans. The Church had 
no longer any attraction for ambitious youth. In Vienna for 
twenty years no student of the university entered into the 
priesthood. Important spiritual offices remained vacant for 
want of candidates. The youth of Germany from its earliest 
childhood imbibed hatred of the Papal system. In France 
Protestantism had found its way into every province. 

1 Not merely the laity,' writes a Venetian ambassador, 1 have embraced 
the new doctrines, but what is most remarkable, the spiritual order, not 
only priests, monks, nuns (there are few cloisters undisturbed), but 
even bishops and many of the most eminent prelates. Your highness — 
[he writes to the doge]— may be assured that, except the common people, 
who still attend the church with much zeal, all the rest have fallen away 
from it, particularly the nobles, the young men under forty years almost 
without exception. Though many of these still go to mass, it is to keep 
up appearances and out of timidity ; when they are unobserved they 
avoid the mass and the church.' 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 203 

In the Netherlands, the execution of 30,000 Protestants pro- 
duced, apparently, no effect on the inflexible people. 

What, then, were the powers at the command of the Papacy 
to arrest this growing defection, and to turn back the revolted 
mind of Europe to her allegiance ? Spain and Italy were 
comparatively faithful to her dominion. The more powerful 
sovereigns, the Kings of Spain, France, and Poland, the Empe- 
ror, the Duke of Bavaria, adhered to Eome. In many of the 
countries in which Protestantism had taken strongest root it 
had not worked downwards among the common people. In 
Poland, in Hungary, in Bavaria it was an aristocratical dis- 
tinction of the upper orders. In France Paris gave the tone 
to many of the great cities in its fierce hostility to the new 
doctrines. M. Capefigue's theory — (and what French writer can 
resist the tempting effect of a brilliant theory ?) — is grounded 
on some truth : that the ancient guilds and corporations, of 
necessity, made common cause with the ancient religion against 
the innovating spirit of the times. In Flanders the Walloon 
provinces were still zealously CatholiG ; in England, both 
among the nobility and the common people, especially at the 
extremities of the kingdom, the majority was yet to be con- 
verted ; in Ireland Protestantism had made little progress ; 
the Tyrol and part of the mountains of Switzerland had not 
received the doctrines of the Eeformation. But the strength 
of the Papacy was in its own reviving energy and activity. It 
had armies at its command more powerful than the men-at- 
arms of Alva, or the Chivalry of the Gruises. For home or 
foreign service it had its appropriate and effective forces. It 
had its stern and remorseless domestic police in the Dominicans, 
who administered the inquisition in Italy and Spain ; men of 
iron hearts, whose awful and single-minded fanaticism bordered 
on the terrible sublime — for they had wrought themselves to 
the full conviction that humanity was a crime when it en- 
dangered immortal souls : the votaries of the hair-cloth and 
the scourge, the chilling midnight vigil, the austere and 
withering fast ; those who illustrate the great truth that men 



204 



THE POPES OP THE 



[Essay IV. 



who proscribe happiness in themselves are least scrupulous in 
inflicting misery ; whom one dark engrossing thought made 
equally ready to lay down their own lives, or to take away those 
of others. Where the revolt had only reached a certain height 
these were the efficient soldiery for its suppression ; the me- 
lancholy volumes of the history of the Reformation in Spain 
and Italy at once trace and explain the operations and the 
success of this part of the great Papal army of defence. But 
though in Spain the extirpation of the enlightened few could 
alone reduce the land to an uniformity of obedience — and in 
Italy many took refuge from the perils of suspected heresy in 
that secret atheism which did not scruple to conform out- 
wardly to the practices of religion — the genius, and national 
feeling in both were essentially Eomish. As it had been in 
Italy, so Eomanism was in Spain the inspiration of its military 
glory, its literature, and its fine arts. Alva and Pescara and 
Gonzales de Cordova, Calderon with his profoundly religious 
autos, Murillo with his virgins, and Eibera with his martyrs, 
were the genuine representatives of the Spanish mind; not 
the few proselytes to a more severe and rational faith, who 
pined in the dungeons of the holy office, or glutted the fires of 
the auto-da-fe. It may be doubted whether, if left to its free 
choice, the nation would not have rejected Protestantism with 
an indignation and animosity which would have incited, rather 
than repressed, the strong measures of the Church and govern- 
ment against the religious mutiny of a small minority. 

But in the provinces of the ancient spiritual empire of Rome, 
which were almost totally alienated, in which Protestantism 
had penetrated the body of the people, or at least had deeply 
imbued the educated classes with free opinions* a different 
policy was necessary to bring them again into subjection : — 
instruments of a totally opposite character must be employed. 
The Jesuits were at hand with their exclusive devotion to the 
interests of the Roman see — the one article of religion which 
absorbed the rest, but did not trammel the free development of 
all their intellectual faculties. Subtle, but not exempt from 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 205 



that suspicion of loose moral casuistry, which at a later period 
chilled their own activity, and rendered them an object of 
jealousy even where they were most feared ; pliant and sub- 
servient, but yet dangerous to the civil power; themselves 
educated up to the general knowledge of the time, and quietly 
assuming the education of the people as their peculiar province, 
this remarkable order, to whose good and evil influence history 
may hereafter do justice, founded by enthusiasm which bordered 
on insanity, but regulated by wisdom which approached to 
craft, came into the field in every part of Europe where it 
could find its way. In Germany its success was most rapid and 
complete. Urban, Bishop of Lambach, was the confessor of 
Ferdinand I. when the Emperor attended the Diet of Augsburg. 
Urban was one of the few prelates whose faith in the religion 
of Eome was still unshaken. In his own diocese he was an 
assiduous preacher, and enforced the unity of the Church upon 
his flock by popular addresses in the German language. In 
Augsburg he met the Jesuit Le Jay, who had already obtained 
some reputation by several conversions from Protestantism. 
By the advice of Urban, Ferdinand invited Le Jay, with twelve 
others of his order, to Vienna. He gave them a mansion, a 
chapel, and a pension, and shortly introduced them into the 
management of the university. In Cologne their establishment 
was more gradual and difficult, but there likewise they suc- 
ceeded in gaining a footing : this was in the year 1566. In the 
same year they were recalled to Ingoldstadt, from which they 
had been expelled — and there likewise, after much opposition, 
they secured the same vantage ground. From these three cen- 
tral points they spread throughout Grermany : from Vienna to 
Prague and other cities of Bohemia ; from Cologne along the 
shores of the Ehine ; from Ingoldstadt they overran the whole 
of Bavaria. They settled in Inspruck, in Munich, in Dillingen. 

In 1551 they had no fixed settlement in Germany ; in the year 1566 
they comprehended within their sphere of operations Bavaria and the 
Tyrol, Franconia and Swabia, a great part of the Khineland, and Austria ; 
they had penetrated into Hungary, Bohemia, and Moravia. 



206 



THE POPES OP THE 



[Essay IV. 



Their influence was already evident : in the year 1561 the 
Papal nuncio declares that 6 they are securing many souls, and 
performing great service to the Holy See.' This was the first 
repression of Protestant influence. The universities are the 
most important sphere of their action. Ingoldstadt became 
to Eomanism what Wittenberg and Greneva were to Protes- 
tantism. Their system of teaching in the grammar schools 
was so successful, that 6 it was found that children learned more 
in their schools in half a year than in other schools in two 
years; even Protestants withdrew their children from the 
more distant gymnasia, and placed them under the care of the 
Jesuits. They had schools for the poor, and every kind of 
institution for the improvement of the various orders.' 

Our author appears to us to have seized the spirit of this 
remarkable revolution with singular felicity. 

All great religious movements have succeeded through the great 
personal qualities of their authors, or the overbearing influence of new 
ideas. Here the effect was accomplished without producing anything 
great or original in religion [this is an imperfect rendering of the Ger- 
man, oline grosse geistige production]. The Jesuits might be learned 
and pious after their manner, but no one will say that their learning 
depended on the free impulse of the mind, or that their piety sprung 
from the depth and ingenuousness of a simple spirit. They were 
learned enough to obtain reputation, to command confidence, to form 
and to retain strong hold on their scholars ; they attempted nothing 
more. Their piety was not only free from all moral blemish, it was 
positive and striking ; that was all they desired. Neither their devotion 
nor their learning struck into free, unlimited, or untrodden paths. Yet 
they had one thing which was their peculiar distinction— rigid method. 
Everything was calculated, for everything had its object. Such an union 
of wisdom sufficient for their purpose with indefatigable zeal, of study 
and persuasiveness, pomp and the spirit of caste, of universal propa- 
gandism through the world, and unity of the main principle, has never 
existed in the world before or since. They were laborious and imagina- 
tive ; worldly-wise, yet full of enthusiasm ; above personal interest, each 
assisting the progress of the other. No wonder that they obtained so 
much success. — Ranke, ii. 34. 

The most singular fact is, that in Grermany they were 
almost all foreigners ; the name of the order was at first un- 
known : they were called the Spanish priests. 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 207 



But one great cause of this strong Komish reaction Pro- 
fessor Eanke has passed over very lightly. In another work, a 
periodical one, devoted to historical and political subjects, — 
Historisch-politische Zeitschrift, — which lies upon our table, it 
has recently been developed much more at length. In a 
valuable paper on the times of Ferdinand and Maximilian II., 
we presume by the editor Professor Eanke himself, their own 
internal feuds are justly represented as seriously prejudicial to 
the cause of the Protestants, and as greatly contributing to the 
unfortunate turn of affairs. This schism in the Protestant 
body was fatal but inevitable. The Eeformation comprehended 
two classes of totally opposite character ; the one consisted of 
calm and rational men, enlightened beyond their age, with 
great respect for human learning, and content to emancipate 
themselves from the superstition of the Papal Church, without 
too rigidly defining those articles of belief which are beyond 
the province of reason. The other class were more severe and 
systematic, following out, with a fearless logic, their own 
principles to the most startling conclusions ; offering a creed 
as definite, as peremptory, as exclusive, as that of the Eomanists 
now grounded on the decrees of the Tridentine Council ; with 
an inquisition into minute observances as severe as that of the 
Papal Church, though unable to inflict penalties beyond the 
animadversions and the denunciations of their own community ; 
with a principle of proscription, which condemned all man- 
kind, who resisted their internal scheme of unity, as dogmati- 
cally as the Vatican did those who revolted from its despotism. 
The moment that the pressing danger from the common enemy 
was even suspended, the division of these two parties seemed 
inevitable. As long as Luther lived, notwithstanding the 
wild opinions broached in his day, notwithstanding the reli- 
gious frenzies of the Anabaptists, still the respect, the awe of 
his great name, the authority which he justly assumed as the 
original leader of the Eeformation, preserved some appearance 
at least of unity in the Protestant body. When he was re- 
moved, the first place fell of right to Melanchthon ; but his 



208 THE POPES OP THE [Essay IV. 

mild influence was little adapted to compel the conflicting 
elements of Protestantism into order. The character, perhaps 
the opinions, of Melanchthon might originally have led him to 
occupy the neutral ground by the side of Erasmus ; but he had 
more moral courage, and was less accessible, perhaps less ex- 
posed, to the flatteries of the great, and his honest indignation 
at the abuses and errors of the Papal system had committed 
him too far in the strife. But the rigorous Protestant party 
suspected Melanchthon— not indeed, from one remarkable oc- 
currence, without just grounds— of an inclination to compro- 
mise with the Papacy; they took deep offence at the classical 
studies which he introduced into the university of Wittenberg; 
his unhallowed taste for profane literature, they asserted, made 
him dwell with the same veneration on Homer as on St. Paul ; 
one of his pupils, Strigel, was charged with an admiration of 
Pindar bordering on heathen idolatry. But we must not 
trespass on this extensive province, which is foreign to our 
present discussion. Suffice it to say, that at this fatal time, 
when Komanism was concentrating all its energies for a deci- 
sive struggle— when Europe was no longer governed by the 
balanced power of France and Spain, but when the contest 
lay between the Papal and the Protestant interests— the Pro- 
testant republic was in all parts rent by fierce and hostile 
factions. The questions of justification and good works, and 
of the sacrament, were contested with an absorbing interest, 
which at least withdrew some of the most powerful minds 
from the greater controversy with the Papacy, and infused 
jealousy and alienation into the temporal as well as the theo- 
logical leaders in the revolt from the domination of Rome. 
University was at war with university; the preachers expelled 
from the dominions of one of the Protestant Saxon houses not 
only found refuge— they were received with ardent welcome 
—by the other. The doctrines of the wilder Anabaptist 
sects, the scenes at Munster, could not but connect, in timid 
minds, the progress of Protestantism with that of social dis- 
organization. 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 209 

To confine ourselves to a few instances — in Germany Ba- 
varia was the centre of the Papal operations ; and the Bavarian 
house engrossed the fame and the advantages derived from its 
unshaken devotion to the Eoman See. It cannot be denied that 
in many countries the great argument which won the nobility 
to the cause of Protestantism was the possession of the Church ' 
property. Benefices, canonries, even bishoprics, if not directly 
usurped, were appropriated by ingenious devices to the benefit 
of the princely families. The sovereigns of the smaller states 
installed their sons, even when not of age, as a kind of ad- 
ministrators, in fact, as usurpers of the revenues, in the chapters 
of which the Protestants had gained possession. The Papacy, in 
its wisdom, saw the effect of these lures held out to the cupidity 
of the powerful ; by well-timed concessions it opened at once 
the golden path of preferment to the royal and noble houses. 
Young princes sprung up at once into wealthy bishops. Even 
the stem Pius V. relaxed his ecclesiastical rigour in favour of 
such devoted partisans of the Roman see. — E.g. 

Of all the secular princes of Germany none is so devotedly Catholic as 
the Duke of Bavaria. Wherefore for his gratification the pontiff has 
given permission to his son, who is not yet of the canonical age deter- 
mined by the council, to hold the bishopric of Freisingen ; this mark of 
favour has been granted to no one else. 

With the same sagacious accommodation to the circumstances 
of the times, the Pope either authorized or took no notice of 
usurpations on cloister property, or interference with appoint- 
ments to bishoprics, which a short time before would have 
been resisted as sacrilegious infringements on the privileges of 
the Church. Duke Albert, in short, by degrees, fully succeeded 
in all his schemes for the re-establishment of Romanism and 
the aggrandizement of his own temporal power. The re- 
fractory states were awed into submission ; all the professors 
in the University of Ingoldstadt were compelled to accept the 
decrees of the Council of Trent ; every one employed in a 
public office was bound to take an oath of adherence to the 
Pope, or dismissed from his place ; in Lower Bavaria not only 

I? 



210 



THE POPES OP THE [Essat IV. 

were the preachers expelled, but the laity ef the Evangelic 
persuasion compelled to sell their property and emigrate. The 
Jesuits hailed the new Josias, the second Theodosius 

We must pass the details as to the great Rhenish sees-all 
of which were by and by won back to the Papacy. The 
dominions of Austria gradually submitted to the same new 
impulse. In all the provinces, German, Sclavonian, or Hun- 
garian, except the Tyrol, Protestantism, as late ™f *>™™' 
Led the preponderance. The Emperor Rodolph II., by his 
own personal example, assisted in rekindling the wamng devo- 
tion to Romanism. He attended all religious ceremomes with 
fervent regularity ; he was seen in winter, bare-headed, with a 
torch in his hand, making a part in the solemn procession. 
Yet even at that time a Protestant preacher of the . most ex- 
treme opinions, Joshua Opitz, was thundering m the Land- 
haus. in Vienna, where the Protestants met to worship agams 
the abominations of Popery, with such vehemence hat, m he 
language of a contemporary, 'as they left the church, they 
Lid have torn the Papists to pieces.' A riot durmg the pro- 
cession of the Corpus Domini, which had been got up wrthth 
utmost splendour, and during which the person of the Emp lor 
,.„rl +n he in danger, compelled or exaspe- 
either was, or appeared to be, m aange , F rpceived 
rated the government to stronger measures. Opitz received 
orders to quit Vienna instantly, the Austrian don— m 
lev n dayl Resistance was apprehended, but his followers 
were content with escorting him out of the city m grea 
numbers, and with every show of respect and affection. But 
the submission of the Protestants, as well as the vigour as- 
sumed by the government, shows the altered e—ces j 
the country. The tide of reformation was already on the ebb , 
a counter current was silently floating back the minds of men 
to the old faith ; and the dams and mounds, which a few yea. 
before would have been swept away, or had only increased the 
J£ of the stream, now arrested and repelled it. The govern- 
ment had the strength and the courage to silence or expel he 
Protestant preachers, and to force the laity either into con- 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 211 



formity, or to abandon their homes, because the popular mind 
was already cold or estranged. The Archduke Charles effected 
the same counter reformation in Illyria. Wolf Dietrich, Arch- 
bishop of Saltzburg, placed the alternative of strict conformity 
to the Eomish worship, or emigration from his territory before 
his subjects. The recantation was attended by the most hu- 
militating circumstances ; they were obliged to perform public 
penance in the church, with lighted torches in their hands. 
Few submitted to this rude discipline — the greater number 
abandoned their native city. The strength, however, of the 
archiepiscopal government was shown by the establishment, at 
the same time, of a civil and an ecclesiastical despotism. The 
taxes were enormously increased, the civil privileges, especially 
of the farmers of the salt mines, invaded. Wolf Dietrich 
repaid the reluctant submission of his subjects by his lavish 
expenditure in their city. The Archbishop of Saltzburg be- 
came again the magnificent and arbitrary prelate of a former 
age. 

It is curious to trace the indications of this new religious 
revolution in the ecclesiastical architecture of Southern Ger- 
many. The old cathedral still retains its rich German cha- 
racter (for the right of Germany to claim the invention, as 
well as the successful practice of what has been long called 
Gothic architecture, appears now clearly decided) ; in Vienna, 
the incomparably rich and graceful spire of St. Stephen's still 
soars above the city ; the flying buttresses of the cathedral at 
Prague hang in the air, high above the eminence on which 
ranges the long line of the palace ; but in general, even in the 
village churches, all is comparatively modern and Italian. The 
Palladian form, deteriorated, it must be confessed, by every 
whimsical variety of flat bottle-shaped domes, broken archi- 
traves, and mingled orders of pillars, prevails throughout ; in 
general, there is not that traceable progressive development of 
the art, the silent encroachment of a new taste upon old 
established models ; in many places the churches are seemingly 
all of the same date, as if Christianity were but recently 



THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. 

settled in the country, or as if, in the anti-reformation, all the 
buildings desecrated by the profane presence of the Lutherans, 
had been swept away to give place to a new order of things. 
The Jesuit churches are in general of one model; simple, 
regular, if we may so speak, systematic buildings; with splen- 
dour enough to attract, but not to dazzle or bewilder the atten- 
tion; not intended for the long processional services of, what 
we will presume to call, feudal Eoman Catholicism, but for the 
regular daily devotion of a well-organized community. The 
form is usually the simple oblong, without aisles, and crossed, 
if at all, by a very shallow transept ; nothing is left to the 
fancy or the caprice of the architect ; the ornament often rich, 
and even lavish, conduces to the general effect. Nor are these 
churches any longer broken into the countless chapels, each 
peopled with its peculiar saint, which sometimes enrich, some- 
times disfigure the older Gothic buildings ; this idolism, if we 
refrain from the stronger and more invidious term idolatry, is 
subdued and mitigated ; the Saviour and the Virgin, if not 
the exclusive, are far the predominant objects of veneration in 
the Jesuit churches. In every thing, in short, both in the 
general effect, and in the details of the service, there appears 
to have been a skilful accommodation to the state of the public 
mind at that period; all was artificial, yet decent, solemn, 
impressive ; a kind of sober and sustained gravity ; all rigidly 
Eoman Catholic, but at the same time much which was most 
offensive to Protestant feeling, and to the more advanced state 
of Christian knowledge, was studiously suppressed or thrown 
into the background. Jesuitism had discarded much of the 
mythology of the older faith, and did not, like the other orders, 
obtrude its own. In a Franciscan or Dominican church the 
wonders of the founder are embodied in every sculpture or 
painting; in the Jesuits' the subjects are more frequently 
scriptural, or at least grounded on earlier tradition. Loyola 
is not the presiding or tutelar deity of the fane. Polytheism 
is manifestly concentrating into something nearer to unity of 
worship. 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 213 

We return to Professor Eanke. This anti-reformation took 
place chiefly during the eventful papacies of Gregory XIII. 
and Sixtus V. The altered position of the Pope might even 
have gratified the unmeasured ambition of the latter pontiff. 
Instead of beholding province after province crumble away 
from his decaying empire, he saw kingdoms gradually and 
voluntarily returning to their allegiance. Instead of winding 
with dark and tortuous policy through the affairs of Europe, 
balancing with a trembling hand the fortunes of the great 
Catholic powers, and timidly yielding his scarcely courted aid 
to one or the other ; Italy overrun with foreign troops, ready to 
act against him at the beck of their sovereign ; his own do- 
minions either occupied by a turbulent nobility, or ravaged by 
a wild banditti ; his power everywhere precarious ; his person 
scarcely secure, at least from insult, if not worse — the Pope 
now stood the acknowledged head of the great Catholic con- 
federacy. His policy was clear and open. Spain was his sub- 
missive and devoted ally. The dominant party in France 
leaned upon him for support ; or at least the rightful heir of 
the throne was unable to establish his claims without his 
consent, and without embracing the Catholic faith. His in- 
fluence was steadily progressive in Germany. A large and 
flourishing part of the Netherlands had been reduced to sub- 
mission. He was called upon to bless, though with prayers 
unratified in heaven, the banners of that mighty expedition 
which, by the subjugation of England, was to extinguish at 
once the last hopes of Protestantism. This extraordinary man 
united the severest practical wisdom with the wildest visions 
of ambition. 6 The stern virtue which he enforced, the severe 
financial system which he introduced, his rigid and minute 
domestic economy, were mingled up with the most fantastic 
political schemes.' The son of the swineherd was Pope— 
and having risen to that height, what was too remote, too vast, 
too impracticable for his hopes ?— he was in thought a papa 
Caesar — 

Nil actum credens, dum quid superesset agendum. 



214 



THE POPES OP THE 



[Essay IV. 



He flattered himself for a long time that he was destined to put an 
end to the Turkish empire. He entered into relations with the East, 
with Persia, with the heads of some Arab tribes, with the Druses. He 
armed many galleys ; Spain and Tuscany were to furnish others ; and 
the sea armament was thus to come to the assistance of the King of 
Poland, Stephen Bathory, who was to conduct the invasion by land. 
The pontiff hoped to unite the whole forces of the north-east and south- 
west in this enterprise ; he persuaded himself that Russia would not 
only join, but subject itself to the King of Poland. 

Another of his schemes was the conquest of Egypt, the 
junction of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea by the long 
imagined canal, the restoration of the old line of commerce. ' 
He would conduct a new crusade for the recovery of the Holy 
Land. If the re-establishment of the kingdom of Jerusalem 
should prove impracticable, the holy sepulchre was to be hewn 
out of the rock and transported to Italy. His native place 
Montalto was to be the more than Loretto of the Christian 
world ; or rather the same small district would contain, as it 
were, the birthplace and the burialplace of the Redeemer. 
If we are to trust a very curious paper in the library at Vienna, 
a Memoir of the Sieur de Schomberg, marshal of France, which 
in Mr. Ranke's opinion bears great marks of authenticity, in 
the mind of Sixtus nepotism attempted as it were a last flight, 
and that the highest to which it yet had soared. After the 
murder of the Guises, Count Morosino proposed on the part of 
His Holiness, that Henry III. should declare his nephew, 
who was to marry an Infanta of Spain, heir to the throne 
of France ! ! 

Beyond, and as a close to all this splendid vista into futurity, 
rose the somewhat more substantial, but still visionary edifice 
of Roman greatness. Rome was again to be the religious 
capital of the world. From all countries, even from America, 
after a certain number of years, there was to be a general 
confluence of mankind to this acknowledged metropolis of 
Christianity. All the monuments of ancient art were to be 
changed into indications of the triumph of Christianity over 
heathenism ; a vast treasure was to be accumulated to maintain 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 215 

the temporal power and greatness of the Eoman see. Thus 
mingled together in the mind of this singular man the pro- 
foundest religious enthusiasm-the principle of his prompti- 
tude and perseverance in action as well as of the daring- 
eccentricities of his imagination-with the most consummate 
worldly prudence. His Oriental visions evaporated m some 
unconnected negotiations, and some brief correspondence; 
scheme after scheme chased each other through his imagina- 
tion; hut his serious thoughts, and his active energies returned 
immediately, and were absorbed by the present and the practi- 
cable. The great object was to cement the whole force of 
Roman Catholicism to prevent the accession of Henry IV. to 
the throne of France. The whole life and soul of Sixtus 
appear wrapt up in this one engrossing object. He enter- 
tained not the least doubt of the cordial and zealous co-ope- 
ration of the whole Roman Catholic world. What was his 
astonishment and his indignation when he heard that a Roman 
Catholic, an Italian power had recognized the title of the 
heretic, and actually congratulated him on his accession! 
He at first condescended to entreat this rebellious power by the 
love of God not to commit itself so far, hut to wait the issue of 
events. But Venice received the ambassador of Henry IV. 
Sixtus at once ordered the whole form of monition pronounced 
by Julius II. against the republic to be sought for and a new 
one prepared. The Venetian ambassador reported to the 
Senate, that if he were to repeat all which had been said by the 
Pope during his interview, the reading would occupy an hour 
and a half of their time. Mr. Ranke has given some of the 
more emphatic sentences, remarkable for the mingled resent- 
ment and respect for Venice— the courtesy and menace. 

There is no misfortune so great as to fall out even with those we do 
not love ; but with those we love, that indeed goes to the heart It 
would indeed go to our heart (and he placed his hand on his hreast) to 

break with Venice Is the Signory then the greatest sovereign 

on the earth that it is to set an example to others ? There is still a king 
of Spain, there is still an Emperor ! ... Has the republic any fears of 
Navarre ? We will protect her, if necessary, with all our powers ; we 



216 



THE POPES OF THE 



[Essay IV. 



have strength sufficient. . . . The republic should esteem our friendship 
higher than that of Navarre. We can support her better. ... I entreat 
you, retrieve this one step. The Catholic king has often retracted, in 
conformity with our wishes ; not from fear of us, for our power com- 
pared with his is that of a fly to an elephant's, but for love, because it 
was the Pope that spake, the vicegerent of Christ, Let the Signory do 
the same ; they will find some way of extricating themselves ; it will 
not be difficult ; for they have aged and wise men enough, each of 
whom might govern a world. 

Vv r e cannot omit this significant sentence in the note : — 
4 There have been three persons excommunicated, the late King, 
the Prince of Conde, the King of Navarre. Two have perished 
miserably ; the third is doing our work, and Grod preserves 
him for our service ; but he too will come to an end, and that 
a wretched one : let us not doubt about him.' — The ambassador 
of Venice was Donato, a man of tried and consummate diplo- 
matic ability ; he belonged to that party in the republic which 
had been formed in strong opposition to the political power of 
the Church. Of the motives which induced the republic to 
this unexpected step he urged that which was adapted to the 
ear of the Pope, the others he suppressed in prudent silence. 

The sudden revival of Catholicism led naturally to the revival 
of the most lofty pretensions on the part of the Church. The 

chief instruments of this revolution, the monastic orders 

more particularly that of the Jesuits (which had been founded 
with the avowed purpose of re-establishing the power of Eome, 
subjects of the Pope who owned no other allegiance)— had 
advanced the strongest opinions on the subordination of the 
temporal to the spiritual power. It is not necessary either 
to reproduce the well-known passages in the writings of the 
Jesuits on the power of the Pope to depose sovereigns, and 
to release subjects from their allegiance, or to multiply new 
ones. It is notorious that the wildest republicanism never 
inculcated what it has been pleased in all cases to call tyranni- 
cide, with more specious argument or more fatal influence, 
than Mariana and the writers of his school. But the Roman 
Catholic world was divided on this point ; a great part repu- 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 217 



diated these more than Hildebrandine doctrines. Venice had 
always taken the lead in its resistance to the encroachments 
of the spiritual power. The proud Signory brooked no rival 
near the throne. Their clergy might take a part in their 
solemn pageants ; the splendour of their churches bore testi- 
mony to the religious zeal of the republic ; but as to substantial 
power or influence, they kept them in as complete subjection, 
and in as total ignorance of the state counsels, as the meanest 
gondolier. 

The opinions had long prevailed in Venice, which were soon 
after promulgated with such fearless energy and unrivalled 
power by Paolo Sarpi. Donato, of course, kept aloof from 
these perilous topics. But he urged strongly the obvious 
danger of establishing Spain in an autocracy, inevitable, if she 
should succeed in destroying the independence of France ; the 
danger to Italy, if there should be no appeal from the des- 
potism, if there should be no counterpoise to the power, of the 
Austrian house. 

Venice was consulting in her present policy the best interests of 
Italy— of the Papacy itself. The Pope listened, to all outward appear- 
ance, unshaken and unmoved. The ambassador demanded his audience 
of leave, the Pope appeared to refuse his parting blessing. But his 
powerful arguments were not lost on the opinionated and intractable, 
yet clear-sighted pontiff. Sixtus struggled for a time against his own 
convictions, but he was convinced at last. After a delay of two days 
Donato was again admitted. The Pope declared that he could not 
approve of the conduct of the republic, but he would suspend the 
threatened measures of hostility. He gave him his blessing and the 
kiss of peace. The next month appeared the envoy from the Catholic 
nobles who had joined Henry IV., M. de Luxembourg. Notwithstanding 
the remonstrances of the Spaniards, the Pope gave him an audience. 
Luxembourg placed in the most glowing light the great qualities of 
Henry, his bravery, his magnanimity, his generosity. Sixtus had that 
rare quality of greatness, that he could admire it in an enemy. There 
was something in Elizabeth and in Henry IV., with which his spirit 
owned kindred and affinity. 

We must not quote the unpriestly and not over delicate 
compliment which he is said to have paid to our virgin queen, 



218 



THE POPES OF THE 



[Essay IV. 



but he was quite carried away by the language of Luxem- 
bourg : — ' Truly,' he exclaimed, c I repent that I have excom- 
municated him.' 'My king and master,' answered Luxem- 
bourg, ' will make himself worthy of absolution, and, at the 
feet of your Holiness, return into the bosom of the Catholic 
Church.' £ Then,' rejoined the Pope, £ will I embrace and 
comfort him.' Already the imagination of Sixtus had em- 
bodied a new and more splendid vision. It was, he assured 
himself, hatred of Spain, not aversion to Catholicism, which 
prevented the other Protestant kingdoms from returning to 
the old faith. There was already an English minister in 
Eome, one from Saxony was expected. Would to Grod, said 
Sixtus, that they were all at our feet ! At this momentous 
crisis the zealots for the advancement of Catholicism beheld, 
but not in silent wonder, this suspicious hesitation, this threat- 
ened defection of the Pope himself, and that Pope the famous 
Sixtus. In France the Leaguists began to denounce his 
rapacity and his nepotism ; in Spain a Jesuit preached upon 
the lamentable state of the Church. 'It is not only the 
republic of Venice that is favourable to the heretics ; but ' — he 
paused — he pressed his finger to his lips — ' the Pope himself.' 
The ambassador of Spain forced his way into the apartments 
of the Pope, — he came to give words and expression to the 
opinion now abroad, that there were some more orthodox, 
more Catholic than the Pope himself ; and this to the very 
face of Sixtus. He knelt, and demanded permission to express 
the sentiments of his master. In vain the Pope commanded 
him to rise. 

' It was heresy,' he said, ' to treat the vicegerent of Christ with such 
disrespect.' The ambassador would not be eluded. 1 His Holiness (he 
began) must declare the partisans of Navarre, without distinction, ex- 
communicated ; His Holiness must pronounce Navarre, under all circum- 
stances and at all times, incapable of succeeding to the throne of France. 
If not, the Catholic King will renounce his obedience to His Holiness ; 
the King will not endure that the cause of Christ shall thus be betrayed 
and ruined.' The Pope scarcely allowed him to proceed. 'This,' he cried, 
4s not the duty of the King.' The ambassador arose, threw himself again 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 219 

on his knees, and wished to go on. The Pope called him a stone of 
stumbling, and turned away. But Olivarez was not content with this ; 
he must and he would finish his protestation, even if the Pope should 
strike off his head ; for he well knew that the King would revenge his 
death, and compensate to his children for his fidelity. Sixtus, on the 
other hand, broke out in fire and flame:—' It belongs to no prince on 
the earth to instruct the Pope, who is appointed by God as the master 
of all others ! The ambassador was behaving with gross impiety ; his 
instructions only empowered him to deliver his protestation, if the Pope 
should appear lukewarm in the affairs of the League. What ! will the 
ambassador direct the steps of His Holiness ? ' 

For the first time Sixtus became irresolute, vacillating, 
false; he resisted, yet yielded to Olivarez; he dismissed 
Luxembourg, but under the pretext of recommending liim a 
pilgrimage to Loretto ; he concluded a new league with Spaiu, 
yet secretly entertained envoys from the Protestant courts ; 
he acknowledged, but dared not openly avow, his admiration 
of Henry IV. The unparalleled difficulties of his situation 
might account for this unexpected failure in his character; 
yet we would suggest, that the feebleness of approaching death 
might have contributed greatly to the sudden paralysis of his 
energies. He died in the July of this year. 

A storm burst over the Quirinal while he was dying. The simple 
populace was persuaded that Fra Felice had made a compact with the 
Evil One, by whose assistance he had risen step by step ; now that his 
course was run, his soul was carried off in the storm. Thus did they 
embody their discontents on account of so many newly-imposed taxes, 
and those doubts of his perfect orthodoxy which during his latter days 
had become prevalent. In wild uproar they tore down the statues, 
which they had before erected to him ; there was even a decree affixed 
in the capitol, that no one should from henceforth raise a statue to a 
Pope during his lifetime.— Ranke, vol. ii. p. 217. 

We have been unwilling to omit these scenes, as striking 
and characteristic as any in the dramatic but less authentic 
work of Gregorio Leti. Concerning this once celebrated 
history, we may observe, that Professor Eanke has found the 
original document from which it was chiefly composed. It 
was by no means the invention of Leti: a great part was 



220 



THE POPES OF THE 



[Essay IV. 



transcribed word for word from a MS. volume still existing at 
Eome, containing anecdotes of the time of Sixtus V. by some, 
though not cotemporary, Wraxall, who had gathered up all the 
floating traditions and current stories of a preceding age. 

Three Popes, Urban VII., Gregory XIV., Innocent IX., 
passed like shadows during one year over the Papal throne. 
The weary Conclave renewed its reluctant sittings. The mo- 
mentous times allowed no repose to the contending factions. 
Yet something like an understanding took place between Mon- 
talto, the representative of the Cardinals created by Sixtus V. 
— (the creatures of the late Pope usually formed a powerful 
body in the next conclave) — and the Spanish interest. San- 
torio, Cardinal of Sanseverina, a stern zealot for the cause of 
the League and of Spain, a man who always leaned to the 
severest and most violent opinions, the life and soul of the 
Inquisition, was the idol and the hope of the Spanish party. 
4 In his MS. autobiography still extant, Santorio speaks of the 
famous day of St. Bartholomew, that day of joy to Catholics.' 
He was yet in the prime of life ; the tiara seemed actually 
settling upon his brows. All was prepared by Olivarez ; thirty- 
six voices, the majority of two-thirds in the Conclave, necessary 
for the election, were pledged to his support. The morning 
came, the Conclave was closed for the election. Montalto and 
Madrucci, the heads of the two opposite parties, now united, 
appeared to conduct Santorio from his cell. According to 
custom, when the election is considered secure, the cell was 
immediately plundered by the servants. Thirty-six Cardinals 
accompanied him to the Capella Paolina ; his opponents already 
began to entreat his forgiveness ; he announced his intention 
of assuming the name of Clement, as expressive of his forgive- 
ness of all his enemies. 

But the name did not work its effect : some began to feel 
misgivings, to tremble at the severity of Santorio. The 
younger Cardinals were unwilling to impose his austere yoke 
upon their necks. His opponents, his personal enemies, began 
to gather together. They met in the Sistine Chapel to the 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 221 

number of sixteen. One voice alone was wanting for the 
exclusion. Yet some among them began to waver, to shrink 
from the consequences of their opposition. But there was no 
less irresolution in Santorio's party. There was a stir, a com- 
motion, a whispering; they began to count the voices, as 
though in doubt. The bold man was wanting who should dare 
to express the sentiments entertained by many. At length 
Ascanio Colonna took courage. He belonged to the Roman 
baronage, which dreaded the inquisitorial zeal of Sanseverina. 
He cried aloud, ' Grod will not have Sanseverina, neither will 
Ascanio Colonna!' He passed from the Paolina to the 
Sistine Chapel. Others who dared not openly, secretly followed 
the example of Colonna. When the scrutiny took place, only 
thirty votes appeared for the candidate. Sanseverina had 
come to the conclave in perfect security ; he already grasped 
the high-prized object of his ambition ; he had to pass seven 
hours in the mortal agony between the fulfilment of his proud 
hopes and the degrading bitterness of rejection ; now feeling 
himself the lord of the world, now a subject. It was decided 
at length — he retired to his plundered cell. * The following 
night,' he writes in his autobiography, ' was more miserable 
than the most distressing instant of my life. The load of 
affliction on my soul, my inward anguish, incredible as it may 
sound, wrung from me a bloody sweat!' Santorio knew the 
Conclave too well to encourage any further hope ; once again 
he was named by his partisans, but without success. 2 

The King of Spain had purchased the support of Montalto 
and the party of the late Pope's adherents for his own nomi- 

2 The passage from Sanseverina' s memoirs concerning this Conclave, quoted 
in the appendix, is very curious. He assigns the motive either of animosity, 
jealousy, or personal ambition, which induced each of his several opponents to 
resist his claim, or by defection to prevent his election. In his bitterness he attri- 
butes their perfidy to the obligations which most of them owed to him. Madrueci, 
the head of the Spanish party, played him false, from the hope he himself enter- 
tained of the pontificate. One of the causes assigned for Colonna's hatred is very 
singular: 'Si ricordava del Talmud impedito da me contra li Giudei.' Sixtus V. 
had been favourable to the Jews, and this probably relates to some proposition for 

the destruction of the Talmud ; but one would not expect to find the Talmud thus 

influencing the election of a Pope. 



222 ' THE POPES OP THE [Essay IV. 

nation of Sanseverina, by renouncing the exclusion of the 
Montalto party. The Cardinal Aldobrandino had been put in 
nomination, as a supernumerary candidate, with Santorio. He 
was of an exiled Florentine family. His father had been 
professor of civil law ; he had five sons, and the father had 
serious apprehensions that he would not be able to give Hip- 
polito, the youngest, the education which his talents seemed 
to deserve. The boy was taken into the service of the Cardinal 
Alessandro Farnese, rose to the prelacy, to the cardinalate. 
During a mission into Poland he had conferred a signal service 
on the house of Austria by interfering to deliver the Archduke 
Maximilian from captivity. Aldobrandino became Pope, and 
took the name which Santorio had announced as his own, 
Clement VIII. 

Clement was a man of remarkable method in business, and 
strictly regular in all the ceremonial of the Church. Every 
morning he performed the mass himself, every evening the 
Cardinal Baronius heard his confession. The daily guests at 
his table were twelve poor people. He laboured assiduously 
at the affairs of the see all the week ; his relaxation on the 
Sunday was conversation on religious subjects with some of 
the more learned monks. 

He conducted the two great events of his reign with con- 
summate dexterity and moderation, — the reunion of France 
to the Roman See by the absolution of Henry IV., and the 
incorporation of Ferrara with the temporal dominions of the 
Pope. 6 Under Clement,' observes Mr. Ranke, 6 the Papacy 
appears under its proper and praiseworthy character, as the 
mediator, the pacificator of Europe.' The peace of Vervins 
may chiefly be attributed to the influence of Clement VIII. 
The feud within the Jesuit order, and the collision of that* 
body with other monastic orders, were matters of scarcely less 
importance to the interests of Catholicism. Power had its 
usual consequences — struggles within the body, envy and 
animosity without. The Jesuits, it has been said, were almost 
exclusively Spanish in their origin; of the twenty-five who 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 



223 



composed the general congregation, eighteen were Spaniards ; 
the three first generals of the order were of Spanish birth. 
Gregory XIII. seems to have felt some jealousy and apprehen- 
sion lest this powerful engine should be less at the command 
of the Pope than of the King of Spain. By his influence 
Mercuriano, an Italian, became the fourth general. Mer- 
curiano was a weak man, governed by those around him ; 
factions grew up between the older members in the Spanish, 
and the younger in the foreign interest. Mercuriano was 
succeeded by Acquaviva, a Neapolitan, who united the courage 
and perseverance of a Spaniard with the address and subtlety 
of an Italian. The King of Spain determined on a visitation 
of the order, and named for that purpose Manriquez, Bishop of 
Carthagena. A general congregation was likewise threatened, 
and 'the generals of the Jesuit order,' observes Mr. Ranke, 
6 hate a congregation as much as the Popes a general council.' 
Acquaviva averted the first danger by suggesting to Sixtus V. 
that Manriquez was a bastard, and Sixtus had a singula]- but- 
insuperable aversion to bastards. The general congregation was 
likewise delayed, but during Acquaviva's absence the consent for 
its convocation was obtained from Clement VIII. Acquaviva 
met the trial, which embraced his whole administration of the 
affairs of the order, witli unbroken courage, and conducted it 
with consummate address. He made some well-timed con- 
cessions; the privileges claimed by the Jesuits of examining 
heretical books, and the surrender of all estates and even 
benefices into the hands of the society by all those who 
entered the order. The first of these privileges clashed wit !i 
the powers of the Inquisition, the second with the civil law. 
He gave a reluctant assent to the triennial election of the 
general, the sexennial meeting of the congregation. In all 
other respects lie came forth triumphant. The collision of the 
Jesuits with the Dominicans in Spain tended at once to 
weaken their authority in that country, and to throw them, as 
it were, on the rest of Europe. The Dominicans watched 
with jealousy the rapid growth of this rival order. The In- 



224 THE POPES OP THE [Essay IV. 

quisition seized on a provincial and some of his brethren, who 
were accused, by a malcontent member of the body, of con- 
cealing the heretical opinions of some of their order. The 
affair, it might be supposed, created an extraordinary sensation 
in Spain. A dark rumour spread abroad that the Jesuit order 
had been found guilty of heretical pravity. This was one of 
the chief reasons which induced the King of Spain to urge a 
visitation of the order, the measure averted by the dexterity 
of Acquaviva. At a somewhat later period real differences of 
religious belief arose between , the Jesuits and the Dominicans. 
The Jesuits revolted from the tenets of Thomas Aquinas, and 
embraced those of Molina on the mysterious subjects of grace 
and free will. This was strictly in character. The austere 
and bigoted and more illiterate Dominicans adhered to the 
severe and definite dogmas ; the Jesuits, learned, subtle, pliant, 
inclined to the latitude of the milder and more moderate 
opinions. By the action of these and other causes, from an 
exclusively Spanish the Jesuits became, to a certain degree, a 
Papal, but, even more, a French power. This is, no doubt, the 
secret of their re-admission into France by Henry IV., who 
appalled his old Protestant friends, and alarmed even many of 
his warmest Catholic partisans, by his appointment of the 
Jesuit Cotton as his confessor. His own light speech, that he 
would rather have them for his friends than his enemies, was, 
no doubt, as true as it was characteristic; but there were 
deeper grounds for this change in the policy of France. 

This agitation in the Jesuit body lasted till the accession of 
Paul V. & On the death of Clement, Leo XI. succeeded— to 
wear the tiara only twenty-six days. Aldobrandino and Mon- 
talto, the partisans of the two last Popes Clement and Sixtus, 
suddenly united, and anticipating the intrigues of Spain, 
elevated to the Papal throne the Cardinal Borghese. Paul V. 
attributed this unexpected event to the special and immediate 
intervention of the Holy Ghost. Even the Roman court, 
accustomed to such alterations, were astonished at the total 
change in the demeanour and bearing of Paul V. Paul had 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 225 

been bred in the study and practice of the canon law ; he 
brought into the administration of affairs that strict adherence 
to the letter of the law, that inflexibility, that severity, which 
arises from such studies, not counteracted by intercourse 
with mankind. He was thoroughly imbued with the most 
exalted notions of the Papal dignity, and the power of the 
keys. As the Holy Ghost had chosen him for the successor of 
St. Peter, so it had invested him with the fullest apostolical 
authority. So great, too, was the change in the state of 
Roman Catholic Europe, so completely were its whole energies 
concentered on the progressive successes against Protestantism, 
that these exorbitant pretensions, instead of awakening gene- 
ral jealousy among the temporal sovereigns, seemed to add 
strength to the cause, and to inspire confidence into its active 
partisans. From Venice, indeed, were heard vigorous and 
unanswerable protests against the supremacy asserted by the 
Pope over the civil authorities. The doctrines of Paolo 
Sarpi, in this respect almost as hostile to the Papacy as Pro- 
testantism itself, were embraced by the proud and inflexible 
republicans. In France, though in some respects Henry IV. 
displayed the ardour of a proselyte, in Mr. Ranke's words, 4 he 
thought more of gaining new friends than of rewarding old 
ones ; ' yet the comparative independence of the Gallican 
Church was by no means surrendered by either the king or the 
clergy. During the papacy of Paid, Romanism was every- 
where in the ascendant. In France, in Germany, in the 
Netherlands, in Hungary, in Poland — zeal and power, the 
preaching of the Jesuit and the edict of the prince, — all that 
could encourage the ardent, win over the wavering, affright 
the timid, break the spirit of the conscientious, — all that 
could dazzle the imagination or subdue the courage, soften the 
heart, or bribe the interests ; — the re-established splendour and 
propriety of the services attracting to the Church ; the decree 
of banishment severing the ties of home or of kindred ; the 
persecution, the prison ; the unwearied charities, the careful 
education, the discharge of the pastoral office with all its 

Q 



22f . THE POPES OF THE C KssiY IV - 

assiduous regularity and gentle spirit ef conciliation ; the 
favour of the sovereign, promotion to the highest offices of the 
state, wealth, honours, distinctions-all worked together against 
distracted Protestantism. 

And Protestantism had now, with some, become an hereditary 
faith 5 it had ceased to he an affair of personal or of pressing 
conviction. In many places, this revived Eomanismhad all the 
charm of novelty; the weariness and distaste, felt by many for 
things established, now embarrassed and chilled Protestantism 
in its turn. In France the vices and the virtues of men contri- 
buted simultaneously to the advancement of the Romish cause. 
The religious indifference, or, worse, the undisguised atheism 
of some of the courtiers, which could not but be encouraged by 
the light-hearted gaiety with which Henry, notwithstanding the 
solemn and laboured gravity with which the scene of his con- 
version was enacted, transferred his allegiance from one faith to 
the other; the careless profligacy of others, who were ready to 
come to terms with that religion which would lay on them the 
lightest yoke, and which they saw would stoop to almost any 
compromise for the sake of making converts; on the other 
hand, the exquisite Christian virtue of men like St. Francis de 
Sales ; the learning of the Benedictines ; the gentle and active 
beneficence of the several female monastic communities which 
heo-an to act as Sisters of Charity, to attend the hospitals, to 
visit the sick, to relieve the distressed-such were the influences 
at work through the whole kingdom. At the same time if we 
are to judge from the interesting memoirs of Duplessis Mornay, 
nothing could be more uncongenial to the national character, 
or less persuasive to the affections, than the austerity of the 
Calvinistic Protestantism, and it s busy and officious interference 
with the minutest details of conduct. Madame de Mornay 
herself, a woman of a saintly disposition, was excluded from 
the communion because her hairdresser sinned against some 
sanctimonious style of top-nots patronized by her preacher. 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 227 



In Germany the desperate and miscalculating ambition of 
the Protestants inflicted the last fatal blow upon their interests, 
which not all the subsequent glories of the Thirty Years' 
War, nor the valour of Ghistavus Adolphus and his Swedes, 
could efface or remedy. The rash acceptance of the Bohemian 
crown by the Elector Palatine, and the consequent subjugation 
of the palatinate by the Eoman Catholic powers, gave an 
immense accession to the increasing preponderance of their 
party. During the thanksgiving procession for the victory at 
the White Mountain, Paul V. was struck with apoplexy, — 
a second stroke followed shortly after ; he died January 28, 
1621. 

Gregory XV., Ludovisi of Bologna, succeeded to the ponti- 
ficate. He was a feeble old man, but his weakness and a^e 
were more than compensated by the energy of his nephew, the 
Cardinal Ludovisi, a young, magnificent, and zealous prelate. 
The short pontificate of Gregory is signalized by two events, 
which show the active solicitude of the head of the Eoman 
Church for the resumption and extension of his spiritual domi- 
nion, — the foundation of the College de Propaganda Fide, and 
the beatification of the two great ornaments of the Jesuit order, 
the real restorers and propagators of Roman Catholicism, — 
Ignatius Loyola and Xavier. To Xavier this debt of gratitude 
was due, if we merely consider the service he rendered to the 
cause of the Papacy, no less than to the half-insane founder of 
Jesuitism. Xavier's labours, no doubt, operated far beyond 
the actual sphere of his extraordinary exertions. The successes 
of the Papal missionaries in the East could not but powerfully 
react on the public mind in the West. The real wonders of 
Xavier's mission were heightened, as they were gradually dis- 
seminated through Europe by his admiring brethren, into a 
scene of constant miracle, unexampled since the days of the 

compendiums of real value produced by the recent taste for cheap publications. The 
author, the Kev. Edward Smedley, an amiable and pious man, who, having become 
incapacitated by bodily affliction for the active duties of his profession, devoted 
himself to literature with great diligence and ability, has, we regret to hear, recently 
died, leaving a large family in very narrow circumstances. 

Q 2 



228 THE POPES OP THE [Essay IV. 

Apostles. It was with singular felicity, we had almost written 
address, that the miraculous powers of the Church of Rome, 
which it was not yet time openly to resume in the face of 
incredulous and inquiring Protestantism, were relegated, if we 
may so speak, to these remote regions. They possessed all the 
fame, all the influence, without provoking immediate jealousy; 
by commanding the admiration they almost conciliated the 
belief of their adversaries. While Christianity was making- 
such wonderful progress in such remote regions, the Protestant 
of ardent piety, however little inclined to approve of the acts of 
the Roman Church, would be tempted to acknowledge the hand 
of God in such apostolic labours and apostolic success. Nor 
would he coldly, as at a later period, separate between the mar- 
vellous and the real in the transaction. There was a grandeur, 
an enterprise, a romance in those accounts of missionaries riding 
on elephants to the gorgeous sovereigns on thrones of gold and 
ivory, which would predispose the mind to the reception of 
preternatural wonders. The Church to which these heaven-led, 
and devoted, and wonder-working men belonged; by which 
they were commissioned ; in whose spirit and whose doctrines 
they taught, would gradually gain in respect and admiration 
—sentiments closely bordering on, if not naturally leading, 
unless in strong and severely Protestantized minds, to vene- 
ration and the desire of re-union. While the Roman Church 
was apparently uniting America, India, China, Japan, Abyssinia 
to Christendom, did it not become a more and more serious 
and questionable affair to infringe upon its unity, to rebel 
against its authority, to weaken its powers ? 

Urban VIII., Barberini, on the death of Gregory in 1623, 
ascended the papal throne. He was of a Florentine mercantile 
family, which had considerable establishments at Ancona. Bar- 
berini was in the vigour of life, fifty-five years old. Under the 
new Pope a total change took place in the appearance of the 
court. < In the chamber of Clement VIII. might be seen the 
works of St. Bernard ; in that of Paul V. those of the blessed 
Justinian of Venice ; on the writing-table of Urban might be 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 229 

found the last new poem, or a treatise on fortification.' Again 
a temporal prince seemed to give law in the Vatican. But 
that which, some years before, might have been dangerous to 
the influence, as secularising or desecrating the character of the 
supreme pontiff, might be practised with impunity now that 
the successful re-action had been carried to such extent, — now 
that France was once more Komish, and the house of Austria 
seemed extending its power into the native realms of Pro- 
testantism, — now that Popish prelates were again seated in 
places so devotedly Protestant as Magdeburg, Halberstadt, and 
Bremen. It seemed the first passion of Urban to raise an 
effective military force, and to render the papal dominions 
impregnable to an enemy. At Castel Franco, in the Bolognese, 
rose the fortress Urbano, so placed, indeed, as to seem less in- 
tended to resist a foreign enemy, than to bridle the refractory 
Bolognese. He fortified the Castle of St. Angelo, established a 
manufactory for arms at Tivoli, and formed an armoury of all 
kinds of weapons under the Vatican library. Eome once more 
became the centre of European politics. 

We now propose to confine ourselves to some transactions 
which relate to our own country. But we ascend again, in 
order to exhibit consecutively the more important parts of 
Mr. Eanke's work connected with English history : one, at least, 
of the facts, which he has brought forward, appears to have 
been unknown, and others have been but slightly touched by 
our native authors. Great hopes were entertained at Rome on 
the union of the British crowns in the person of J ames I., the 
son of the sainted martyr for the faith, Mary of Scotland. 
Public thanksgivings and processions celebrated his accession. 
Clement VIII. took care to inform him that, as the son of so 
virtuous a mother, he prayed for his temporal and eternal 
welfare. The English Romanists were instructed to recognise 
James as their rightful king, with all true loyalty; and James, 
through his ambassador at Paris, who was in friendly inter- 
course with the Nuncio, promised his protection to all peaceful 
Roman Catholics. It is said that when the Puritans complained 



230 



THE POPES OF THE 



tEssAY IV. 



that mass was publicly performed in the North of England, and 
that 50,000 English converts had been made to Popery, James, 
whose pedantry did not always overlay, and whose prudence 
never controlled his wit, answered, ' that they might on the 
other hand convert as many Spaniards and Italians.' But, what- 
ever might be James's private sentiments, the general voice of 
the nation demanded, and James could not but sanction, the 
enforcement of the existing Acts against the Koman Catholics. 
Persecution ensued. The high-wrought and disappointed 
hopes of the Papists maddened the more fanatic among them. 
The Gunpowder Plot was intended to wreak their vengeance ; 
but ended in the complete, even if temporary, alienation of 
James's mind from their cause, and united in one sentiment 
of animosity the whole Protestant part of the nation. Fear 
seemed to justify hatred, — hatred magnified the general fear. 
Yet when the first terror was over, the tendency of his own 
opinions, and his dislike of the Puritans, gradually drew James 
back to at least a more amicable feeling towards the Eomanists. 
His inactivity during the war of the Palatinate — though to be 
ascribed in part to his timidity, to his love of peace, and his 
fear of parliaments — his consent, first to the Spanish, then to 
the French match — show at least no implacable animosity to 
Eome. There is one circumstance with regard to James's own 
family, unnoticed by Mr. Kanke, as well as by our native 
historians (so far as our memory extends), which is of some 
importance, not so much on account of the weight and influ- 
ence of the person, as indicating the successful system of pro- 
selytism pursued by the Vatican. Anne of Denmark, James's 
queen, was a secret Roman Catholic, in regular correspondence, 
receiving letters and indulgences from Eome. The authority 
for this fact may be found in Gralluzzi's < History of the Grand 
Duchy of Tuscany' (vol. iii. 318-323, 4to ed.), almost the 
best historical work, we may observe, in the Italian language. 
Galluzzi wrote from the archives of the Medici family, and at 
the period when the religion of James's queen had become a 
question of perfect indifference. Anne conducted her corre- 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 231 

spondence through Ottaviano Lotti, secretary to the Florentine 
embassy. 'La Eegina lo aveva ammesso al segreto del suo 
cattolicismo ed esso la serviva in procurarle da Eoma delle 
indulgenze e delle devozioni.' Lotti was employed to negotiate 
the marriage of Prince Henry with Catharine de' Medici. The 
Pope refused his consent, notwithstanding a letter written in 
her own hand, by Anne of Denmark, in which she declared 
herself his ' obedientissima figlia.' She had before given Lotti 
instructions to represent her zeal for the restoration of Catholi- 
cism in the country, and her hopes of regaining the unsettled 
mind of Prince Henry by the attractions of a Catholic wife. 
Those attractions, from which the mother hoped so much influ- 
ence over her elder son, might have been employed by Spain, 
and were by France, though, as far as his religion was concerned, 
without effect, yet with most fatal consequences as to his future 
destiny, upon the younger Charles. 

On the negotiations, relating first to the Spanish, afterwards 
to the French match, Mr. Eanke's work contains nothing new. 
But with regard to a later period, there is a remarkable state- 
ment which deserves the diligent examination of the English 
historian. Nothing is more unaccountable than the change in 
the policy of England when Charles I. seemed suddenly and 
wantonly to involve himself in a war with both the great 
Eoman Catholic powers, France and Spain, at the time in 
which the growing and insuperable jealousy of parliament 
seemed to make it impossible to obtain supplies by legal 
means for the conduct of a war so perilous and expensive. 
This perplexing act, apparently of providential political de- 
mentation, is usually ascribed to the caprice or the passion of 
Buckingham— his quarrel with France arising from his wild 
love-adventure with Anne of Austria. The expedition against 
the Isle of Ehe, and the sudden attempt to re-organize the 
Huguenots against the government, have appeared almost as 
unjustifiable as impolitic, ill-timed, and disastrous. But Mr. 
Eanke brings strong evidence to prove that, at this time, Urban 
VIII. had matured his favourite plan—' a strict confederacy of 



232 



THE POPES OF THE 



[Essay IV. 



the Catholic poivers for the subjugation of England' He 
had made overtures which can be clearly traced to both of 
these powers. His arguments were favourably heard by both. 
The treaty was drawn by Olivarez and amended by Eichelieu. 4 
On April 20, 1627, it was ratified by the ministers of the two 
countries. The amount of forces to be furnished by either 
power was stipulated — the time of invasion fixed for the en- 
suing spring. Measures were to be taken for dispersing the 
English fleet, and for gaining the superiority in the seas, even 
over the combined navies of England and Holland, by means 
of an armed company, established under the pretence of pro- 
tecting the commerce of Flanders, France, Spain, and Italy: 
overtures were made to the Hanse Towns to join this league. 
Mr. Kanke finds no distinct stipulations as to the partition of 
the spoil between France and Spain ; but Ireland was to be 
the portion of the Pope. In the July of the same year in 
which the treaty was signed, Buckingham made his descent on 
the Isle of Rhe. Had, then, Charles obtained intelligence of 
the secret league ; and was this a bold measure of his minister 
to anticipate the invasion, and by encouraging and supporting 
the insurrection of the Huguenots, to disconcert the plans 
and occupy the forces of France? The general difficulty of 
entirely suppressing such state secrets may favour this notion 
— but it is a still more important fact, that it was known to the 
ambassador of Venice. Zorzo Zorzi, the ambassador, writes 
in these words : — 4 Si aggiungeva che le due corone tenevano 
insieme macchinationi e trattati di assalire con pari forze e dis- 
positioni 1'isola d' Inghilterra.' Venice was in the closest 

4 M. Capefigue, in his Eichelieu, Mazarin, La Fronde, &c. (v. iv. c. 42)— a work 
in which the philosophical affectations are compensated by the value of some of the 
original documents, redites this secret treaty from the Archives of Simancas : — 
' C'etait done la plus vaste, la plus grande des entreprises que celle que preparaient 
alors les deux couronnes de France et d'Espagne : il ne s'agissait de rien moms 
que de la conquete de l'Angleterre, et du retablissement de la foi catholique, de cette 
unite, principe exclusif de la politique de San Lorenzo.' M. Capefigue seemed not 
to be aware of the Pope's share in this transaction, and suspects that both 
parties were playing false, and secretly negotiating, for their private advantage, with 
England. 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUKIES. 233 



correspondence with ' England : their common interests were 
opposed to the union and aggrandizement of the two great 
powers; and Venice (Eelat. di Francia, 1628) was suspected 
of having advised the expedition against the Isle of Khe. 

The strong, and to us most embarrassing, objection to this 
view of the subject is the silence of Buckingham himself, and, 
after his death, of Charles, when such a vindication of his 
measures might, at least, have allayed the general discontent 
of the nation, so strongly painted by Clarendon, and the angry 
accusations of the Commons against Buckingham. If the dis- 
closure of this Catholic league had not at once rallied the 
whole nation around the standard of the king and his minister, 
now the champions of endangered Protestantism and British 
liberty, yet Parliament would not have had the disposition to 
withhold supplies for the maintenance of a war so just and so 
inevitable — or if it had, it would have arrayed the general 
spirit of England against any such attempt. 

The running into this war with France — (writes Clarendon) — from 
whence the queen was so newly and joyfully received — without any 
colour of reason, or so much as the formality of a declaration from the 
king, containing the ground and provocation, and end of it, according 
to custom and obligation in like cases — (for it was observed that the 
manifesto which was published was in the duke's name, who went 
admiral and general of the expedition) — opened the mouths of all men 
to inveigh against it with all bitterness, and the sudden ill effects of it, 
manifested in the return of the fleet to Portsmouth, within such a dis- 
tance of London that nothing could be concealed of the loss sustained. 
— Hist, of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 75. 

When the charges of the Commons against Buckingham 
embodied these general sentiments of the people, it is unac- 
countable that Buckingham should be so scrupulous, or so 
proud, as not to appeal to this justification of his measures. 
He might hope by the success of the second expedition to 
Eochelle (for which he was about to embark when he was 
assassinated) to redeem the disgrace and disaster of the former 
one ; but still he would hardly have thrown away this chance 
of attaining popularity, perhaps as unmeasured as the obloquy 



234 THE POPES OP THE [Essay IV. 

and indignation with which he was pursued from all quarters. 
Though secresy might be of much importance, and the evi- 
dence of the league, however convincing to the king and his 
ministers, might be somewhat defective— (as in the case of the 
designs of Buonaparte prevented by our attack on Copenhagen) 

yet even Buckingham would scarcely have locked his secret 

in his own bosom. After his death, Charles, though not too 
faithful to the memory of a dead friend, would scarcely have 
persisted in the blind and obstinate determination to bear all 
the blame attached to an unprovoked and unsuccessful war, 
when he might have thrown it off at any time, by avowing the 
cause and ground of it, before the nation and before Europe. 
We have stated the evidence for, and the objections which 
have occurred to us against, this very remarkable story— and 
so we leave it for the consideration of the more profound in- 
quirers into English history. 

If the influence of Urban VIII. was strong enough to com- 
bine France and the house of Austria for one great effort, he 
had neither sufficient power or impartiality to maintain the 
good understanding. The rapid successes of the Emperor in 
Germany aroused the jealousy of Eichelieu; the dispute about 
the inheritance of Mantua brought the two powers into direct 
collision. Urban was his own minister ; he scarcely consulted 
the college ; he had no private council ; and his self-will dis- 
played itself in nothing more strongly than in his partial ad- 
herence to one party in Catholicism. In his policy he was 
decidedly French: he insultingly refused the Emperor the 
spoils of his victories— the first appointment (for the Emperor 
humbled himself to this request) to the sees and benefices 
which his arms reconquered from the Protestants— the esta- 
blishment of the Jesuits in the vacant cloisters. This last 
demand awoke the general animosity of all the other orders 
against the Jesuits. So complete was the estrangement be- 
tween the Pope and the Emperor, that Wallenstein, who com- 
manded the Imperial army in Italy, dropped the significant 
menace,— 4 Rome has not been plundered for a century; it 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 235 

must be richer now than it was.' Europe was now again 
divided by the rivalry of France and the Austrian-Spanish 
house. England, distracted by civil wars, had lost all Euro- 
pean influence. On one side were arranged the Emperor at the 
head of his triumphant armies and the King of Spain. On 
the other, France, some of the Catholic princes of Germany, 
the Protestants, with the King of Sweden at their head, and 
the Pope !— So formidable was the league, that the Emperor 
was obliged to surrender, at the Diet of Eatisbon, all his ad- 
vantages in Italy, and to abandon Wallenstein to his foreign 
enemies. By the disgrace of Wallenstein he dissolved his 
army. 

Yet Urban obstinately persisted in closing his eyes to the 
fact, which the rapid and brilliant successes of (xustavus 
Adolphus made daily more manifest, that the Thirty Years' 
War was a war of religion. The Emperor vainly pressed him to 
assist, by espousing his cause, the falling fortunes of Catholi- 
cism, and implored subsidies from the Papal treasury against 
the common enemy. 6 The King of Sweden,' said Ferdinand's 
ambassador, 4 if the Emperor is supported, may easily be con- 
quered—he has but 30,000 men.' 4 With 30,000 men,' said 
the Pope, 4 Alexander conquered the world.' It was not till 
the victorious Swede, having overrun the Palatinate, occupied 
Bavaria, and actually approached the Alps, that the Pope 
awoke from his dream of security. 

The Thirty Years' War was, as it were, the last general effort 
of the two conflicting systems. The Peace of Westphalia not 
merely silenced the strife of arms, but, at least in Germany, 
the strife of religion. Each party was content to rest upon its 
present possessions. In both the aggressive power was worn 
out. The strong impulse of Protestantism had long subsided, 
that of Eoman Catholic re-action expired in the same manner. 
The torpor of death seemed to have succeeded to these last, 
these most violent and exhausting convulsions. 

But from the instant that Eomish re-action ceased, the Pope 
sunk into the respected, but neither feared nor courted, primate 



236 THE POPES OP THE [Essay IV. 

of his own Church, and an Italian prince of moderate domi- 
nions. The only considerable encroachment on the interests of 
Protestantism was the revocation of the edicts of Nantes and 
the persecution of the Protestants. But this, though its 
primary motive was the bigotry of a mistress working on the 
enfeebled mind of an aged king, was after all an act of political 
despotism rather than of genuine religious zeal. It was 
effected altogether by force ; the missionaries would have done 
little without the dragoons. It was neither sanctioned nor 
applauded by the general voice of Catholic Europe. Not only 
was the Pope in no respect the prime mover in these affairs, 
but he expressed, to his honour, his public disapprobation of 
these unchristian modes of conversion by the sword. But his 
remonstrances were unheard or unnoticed ; and he must have 
looked on equally without power of interference, if that ca- 
pricious tyranny had taken another course. 

The Papal annals now become barren of great events : they 
had nothing to call forth great minds, if great minds there were 
in the long line of pontiffs from the middle of the seventeenth 
century to the present age. The election to the Papacy became 
an affair of comparative apathy ; instead of being watched in 
anxious suspense by wondering Europe, it created some stir in 
the city, and some activity among the diplomatic agents of the 
different courts, and that was all. The fortunate candidate 
was announced, but whether it was an Innocent or a Clement, 
a Pius or a Gregory, created little interest. The temporal 
power was in the ascendant ; the spiritual in the wane. The 
personal character therefore was less developed, or if developed, 
its influence was confined within the narrow sphere of his 
temporal dominions. Mr. Eanke seems conscious that the 
interest of his story is dying away, and conducts the several 
pontiffs across the scene with rapid indifference. The chapters 
which relate to the finances of the Papal dominions are however 
very curious. The late Popes had succeeded in adding Urbino 
and Ferrara to their dominions, Urban made a desperate attempt 
to dispossess the Farneses of Parma. His death is said to have 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH ' AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 237 



been hastened by bis disappointment ; instead of leaving* an 
accession of territory, be left an enormous increase of debt. 

Modern Eome is another striking illustration of the bad 
policy and, unhappily, of the fatal financial system, adopted by 
all the later Popes of the seventeenth century, and pursued 
till the Eomagna has gradually become what it is — a vast 
wilderness, a comparatively dispeopled waste. The vestige 
of splendour which each Pope has left is the palace of his de- 
scendants ; and to enrich these descendants there were no 
resources but the taxation of the country, the accumulation of 
the debt, or the alienation of the domains of the see. The 
memory of the four last Popes whose lives we have briefly 
related, the Alclobrandini, the Ludovisi, the Borghese, the 
Barberini, lives, or did recently live, in the noble family which 
each created and endowed. The next Pope, Innocent X., was 
a Panfili. Excepting that a new influence, that of female 
relations, rose up and distracted the Papal court, Innocent was 
an active, just, and influential pontiff. He inclined strongly 
to the Spanish interest, and by renewing a friendly intercourse 
with the Italian powers, who had been alienated by Urban 
VIII., he did not, indeed, reduce the Farneses to subjection, 
but he forced them to submit to the claims of justice. Alex- 
ander VII. (Chigi) succeeded in 1655. Chigi at first showed 
an unprecedented and 6 heroic ' resistance to the claims of 
kindred. But the unanswerable arguments which were urged 
in favour of the good old practice of nepotism — the indecency 
of permitting the Pope's relations to remain the simple citizens, 
perhaps of some insignificant town — the greater confidence 
entertained by foreign powers if the missions should be filled 
by the Pope's relations — overcame his narrow scruples ; he 
yielded, and surrendered himself with the zeal of a proselyte to 
the venerable usage. It was this Pope, if we remember right, 
the smallness of whose mind Cardinal de Eetz inferred from 
his boasting that he had written almost all his life with only 
one pen! Cardinal Bernini came to the same conclusion, 
because, when a fine statue was shown him, he seemed to 



2g g THE POPES OP THE IY - 

observe nothing but the border at the bottom of the robe. 
< Such remarks,' says the shrewd De Eetz, 'may appear trifling, 
but they are conclusive.' Mr. Eanke, we observe in passing 
docs not seem to have availed himself much of the clever French 
cardinal's account of his share in the intrigues of the Eoman 
court Under Alexander the management of affairs fell mto 
the hands of the Congregation of State, which gradually became 

^hf n D eTpTp r ; was Clement IX., Eospigliosi, and his sue 
cesser Clement X., Altieri. The first less openly, the second 
avowedly, espoused the Spanish interests. Innocent XI 
(Odlcakhi) was a man of higher character-the mildest of 
Len he was accustomed to request the attendance of his 
"ants 'if they were not otherwise engaged ' Hrs confessor 
declared that he had never discovered anyttag^e.uU 
Innocent which could estrange him from God. With all this 
gentleness, Innocent undertook the papal function with he 
Lt pure and conscientious determination to discharge the 
duties of that supreme dignity. He turned his attention to 
the appalling disorder of the finances. The successive Popes 
had gonf on gradually increasing the capital of the debt, which 
eve/at the end of the reign of Urban VIII. had grown to an 
overwhelming magnitude. At length the dataria, the revenue 
rom foreign countries, hitherto religiously reserved or the 
~ses of the Pope and his court, was burthened withLuoghi 
di Monte. Still, Lwevcr, the price of Papa funds was high 
and Alexander VII. obtained temporary relief by lowering the 
H Z, first the unfunded, then the funded from .10* to 6 
Z Lt, t seems subsequently to have been reduced to four, 
aid Innocent XI. entertained the design of bringing it down 
" three. But on.the accession of Innocent, the Papal expendi- 
tee amounted to 2,578,106 sc. 91 baj.-the income including 

70 000 cudl and threatening almost immediate bankruptcy. 
Bv print and rigid economy, by abstaining from nepo ism, 
by the suppression ef useless places, and the general mvestiga- 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 239 

tion of abuses, Innocent brought the expenditure within the 
income. 

The firmness of Innocent was severely tried in his conflict with 
Louis XIV. We have no space to enter into the detail of the 
encroachments which Louis, in the overbearing consciousness 
of power, ventured against the See of Rome. Innocent resisted 
with decision and dignity. He received at his court with signal 
favour two Jansenist bishops who had been disgraced on account 
of their resistance to the ecclesiastical measures of Louis. He 
addressed three several admonitions to the king. When Louis, 
in the assembly of 1682, caused the four famous articles 
declaratory of the independence of the Grallican Church, and 
almost amounting to the total abrogation of the Papal authority, 
to be passed by the clergy of his kingdom, Innocent declared 
that he would endure every extremity rather than yield ; 6 he 
gloried only in the cross of Christ.' He resolutely refused the 
canonical institution of all those whom Louis, for their service 
in that assembly, hastened to promote to bishoprics. When 
the French ambassador, to defend the privilege of asylum which 
he claimed in Eome, not merely for the precincts of his own 
palace but for the neighbouring streets, rode through Eome 
with a bodyguard of two troops of horse ; and thus armed, 
defied the Pope in his own capital — e Thou comest,' said 
Innocent, 6 with horse and chariot, but I will go forth in the name 
of the Lord.' The Pope's disapprobation of the persecutions 
against the Protestants at this time, when he was committed 
with Louis on other points, and might have been tempted to 
win the favour of the king by recognizing him as the champion 
of Catholicism, is a still higher testimony to his noble courage. 
He has been suspected at least of secret connivance at these 
barbarous proceedings. Mr. Eanke entirely acquits him of 
this charge, and declares that he couched his protestation in 
the remarkable words, — < It is right to draw men into the 
temple, not to drag them by force.' Innocent died before the 
termination of these disputes. The short papacy of Alexander 
VIII. and that of Innocent XII. (Pignatelli) occupy the few 



240 



THE POPES OP THE [Essay IV. 



re— g years of the seventeenth century. In 1700 Clement 
XI (Altai) ascended the Papal throne. The close of this 
century was the proposed limit of Mr. Ranke's labours - hut he 
has sunned a chapter or two on the later history which we 
could have wished had been more full and complete. The 
eighteenth century might have afforded ample matter for 

another volume. . 

We conclude our article with some few remarks (chrefly from 
Mr Ranke) on the state of the city and of the Roman territory 
during this period. In the seventeenth century the Popes 
gradually became men of peace; the energies of foreign re- 
conquest had died away ; the quiet maintenance of their power 
and dignity contented their subdued ambition ; they had shrunk 
into the sovereigns of Rome, and their pride seemed now to be 
to embellish their capital, and to make Rome, as it had been the 
seat first of civil, then of spiritual government, now the centre of 
European art. Modern Rome is almost entirely the growth of 
thiscentury. St. Peter's was finished under Paul V, considerate 
additions were made to the older churches, the Lateral > and Santa 
Maria Maggiore ; and most of the other sacred edifices which 
at present attract the stranger by their interior splendour and, 
we must add, in general offend him by their deviations from 
the great principles of architecture, hear evident signs of his 
aff e for with the impulse of reviving Catholicism, the creative 
powers, the grandeur of conception, and the boldness of execu- 
tion in Catholic art, either altogether failed, or gave place to 
the love of tasteless ornament and unharmonized extravagance 
Even in St. Peter's, in Forsyth's hitter language, ' a wretched 
plasterer came down from Como to break the sacred unity of 
Michael Angelo's [or rather Bramante's] master idea. The 
modern ecclesiastical architecture of Rome seems to indicate 
the residence of a wealthy hierarchy reposing in peaceful dignity 
and luxuriating in costly huilding, but having departed from 
the pure and simple nobleness of classical antiquity, the passion 
of the preceding age, without going hack to the harmonious 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 241 



richness, the infinite variety, yet unity of impression, which is 
found in the genuine Catholic Christian art, the Gothic, or 
German style. The palaces of Eome, on the whole, are much 
finer than the modern churches. They indicate the residence 
of an opulent and splendid aristocracy; and such, partly 
composed of the older houses, partly of the descendants of 
the Papal families, was the nobility of Rome. But, with the 
exception of the Colonnas, the names of the older Eoman aris- 
tocracy are little connected with the palaces, libraries, and 
galleries, still less with that which adds so much to the 
beauty of the modern city, the rich splendour of the num- 
berless villas of Eome. 4 In the middle of the seventeenth 
century,' says Mr. Eanke, 6 there were reckoned to be in Eome 
about fifty families 300, thirty-five 200, sixteen 100 years old; 
all below this were considered of vulgar and low birth. Many 
of them were either settled or had possessions in the Campagna. 
Most of this old nobility, however, were tempted to become 
holders of Luoghi di Monte. The sudden reduction of the 
interest brought them into difficulties, and they were gradu- 
ally obliged to alienate their estates to the wealthier papal 
families, who thus became the non-resident holders of vast 
landed property.' 

Mr. Eanke considers these large estates, held by a few pro- 
prietors (exactly the latifundia of old Eome), as one great 
cause of the deterioration of agriculture in the Campagna. 
From the peculiar nature of these lands, they required the 
constant and unremitting care of resident farmers, interested in 
their productiveness. The system of small farms, with, as far 
as might be, a proprietary interest in the soil, could alone 
successfully conduct the agriculture of the Eoman territory. 
Mr. Eanke concurs with many writers in attributing the ex- 
tension of the malaria to the destruction of the woods. Gre- 
gory XIII. destroyed those in the valleys with a view of pro- 
moting and extending agriculture ; Sixtus V. those on the 
mountains, in order to lay open the haunts of the banditti. Since 

B 



24 2 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. 

that period, however, the malaria has constantly encroached 
more and more, on districts before either partially visited, or 
not at all. Under these fatal influences the produce of the 
Campagna diminished yearly. 

The interference of the government, and the injudicious 
remedy applied to the growing evil, completed the work of 
desolation. Urban VIII. adopted the fatal measure of pro- 
hibiting the exportation of corn, cattle, and oil, not merely 
from the territory at large, but from one district to another ; 
and he gave almost unlimited authority to the prefect. This 
magistrate was empowered to assess the price of corn according 
to the harvest, and in proportion to that price to compel the 
bakers to regulate the price and weight of bread. 

The prefect became immediately an enormous and uncon- 
trolled monopolist; and it is from this time that the complaints 
of the ruin of the papal territories commence. In our former 
article we extracted a passage from the Venetian despatches, 
expressive of the somewhat jealous admiration, with which the 
native of that state in elder days surveyed the unexampled 
richness and fertility of Eomagna. ' In our journey to Eome 
and back ' (writes the Venetian ambassador in 1621), 'we have 
remarked the great poverty of the peasantry and the common 
people, the diminished prosperity, not to say the very limited 
means, of all other classes. This is the effect of the system of 
government, and the wretched state of commerce. Bologna 
and Ferrara maintain a certain degree of splendour m their 
palaces and their nobility. Ancona is not without commerce 
with Eagusa and Turkey. All the other cities are far gone to 
decay.' The Cardinal Sacchetti, in a memorial to Alexander 
VII described the sufferings of the Eoman peasants and lower 
classes as worse than those of the Israelites in Egypt :-' People 
not conquered by the sword, but either bestowed on, or of their 
own free will subjected to the Eoman See, are more inhumanly 
treated than slaves in Syria or Africa!' 

How singular the contrast between the Campagna of Eome 
and the hadendas of Eome's faithful servants in South America ! 



Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 243 

Here, is Romanism subduing ferocious or indolent savages to 
the arts and the happiness of civilized life, changing the wild 
forest or unwholesome swamp into rich corn land ; there, close 
at home, turning a paradise into a desert ! — so completely does 
even the same form of Christianity differ in its effects, accord- 
ing to the circumstances of time and place, and the state of 
society. In one case, we see it devoting itself with single- 
mindedness to the welfare of the lowest of mankind ; in the 
other, as blind to its interests as to higher obligations, in that 
very place where, in many respects, it had concentrated its 
strongest zeal and profoundest piety, neglecting the most 
solemn, the most Christian duty, the happiness of the people 
committed to its charge. Even Eoman Catholics could not 
but allow that what they conscientiously considered the best 
religion, produced the worst government in Europe. 



244 



V, 

CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 1 

(June, 1848.) 

We must confess that something like profane curiosity arrested 
our attention, and compelled us, as it were, to a more careful 
examination of this book. Its author had previously published 
a History of the Company of Jesus, in six volumes ; and with 
that patience which belongs to our craft, we had perused them 
from the beginning to the end. M. Cretineau Joly is so 
awfully impressed, not only with the greatness of the Jesuit 
order, but with the absolute identification of their cause and 
that of true religion, almost with their impeccability, that he 
can scarcely be offended if we pronounce his work, in our 
opinion, far below the dignity of his theme. That theme 
would indeed test the powers of the most consummate writer. 
The historian of the Jesuits should possess a high and generous 
sympathy with their self-devotion to what they esteemed the 
cause of their Master, their all-embracing activity, their ro- 
mantic spirit of adventure in the wildest regions ; but no less 
must he show a severe sagacity in discerning the human 
motives, the worldly policy, the corporate, which absorbed the 
personal ambition ; he must feel admiration of the force which 
could compel multitudes, lustre after lustre, century after 
century, to annihilate the individual, and become obedient, 
mechanically-moving wheels of that enormous religious steam- 
engine, which was to supply the whole world with precepts, 
doctrines, knowledge, principles of action, all of one pattern, 

i Clement XIV. et les Jesuites. Par J. Cretineau Joly. Paris, 1847. 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



245 



all woven into one piece ; and, at the same time, exercise a 
sound and fearless judgement as to the workings of such an in- 
fluence on the happiness, the dignity of mankind. He must 
have the industry for accumulating an appalling mass of ma- 
terials, yet be gifted with that subtle and almost intuitive 
discrimination which will appreciate the value and the amount 
of truth contained in documents, here furnished by friends who 
have been dazzled into blindness by the most fanatic zeal — 
there by enemies who have been darkened into blindness, no less 
profound, by that intense hatred, which even beyond all other 
religious orders or bodies of men it has been the fate of the 
Jesuits to provoke. He must be armed with a love of truth 
which can trample down, on all sides, the thick jungle of pre- 
judice which environs the whole subject ; he must be superior 
to the temptation of indulging either the eloquence of pane- 
gyric or the eloquence of satire : endowed with a commanding 
judgement, in short, which, after rigid investigation, shall not 
only determine in what proportions and with what deductions 
the charges entertained by a large part of the best and most 
intelligent of mankind against the order are well-grounded, 
but at the same time account for their general acceptance ; 
that acceptance marked sufficiently by the one clear fact that 
Jesuitism and kindred words have become part of the common 
language of Eoman Catholic, as well as of Protestant countries. 

The work of M. Cretineau Joly is too incoherent and frag- 
mentary, too much wanting in dignity and solidity, for a 
history ; it is too heavy and prolix for an apology. It is a 
loose assemblage of materials, wrought in as they have occurred, 
as they have been furnished by the gradually increasing con- 
fidence of the Jesuits themselves, or have struck the author in 
the course of rambling and multifarious reading — of passages 
pressed into the service from all quarters, especially from Pro- 
testant writers, who may have deviated through candour, love 
of paradox, or the display of eloquence, into praises of the 
Jesuits ; of long lists of illustrious names, which have never 
transpired beyond the archives of the Order — interminable 



246 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



lists in which the more distinguished among the foreign mis- 
sionaries and martyrs, and the few who have achieved lasting 
fame as theologians or pulpit orators, historians, men of 
letters, or men of science, are lost, and can only be detected 
by patient examination; of elaborate vindications of all the 
acts of the whole Order, and almost every individual member 
of it, with charges of ignorance, calumny, heresy, Jansenism, 
G-allicanism, Protestantism, Eationalism, Atheism, against 
all their adversaries. The < History of the Company of Jesus' 
does not appear to us superior to the general mediocrity of 
those countless ultramontanist histories, biographies, hagio- 
graphies, and treatises which have been teeming from the 
Parisian, and even the provincial, press of France for the last 
few years, scarcely one of which, notwithstanding their mutual 
collaudations, has forced its way into the high places of French 
literature. 

Under these impressions, we might not have been disposed to 
linger long over this seventh or supplementary volume of Jesuit 
history from the same pen ; but the following paragraph, in one 
of the earliest pages (p. 7), seized upon us like a spell 

Nevertheless, when my labours were ended, I was appalled at my 
own work ; for high above all those names which were conflicting against 
each other to their mutual shame and dishonour, there was one pre- 
eminent, which the Apostolic throne seemed to shield with its inviola- 
bility. The highest dignitaries of the Church, to whom I have long 
vowed affectionate respect, entreated me not to rend the veil which 
concealed such a Pontificate from the eyes of men. The General of 
the Company of Jesus, who for so many and such powerful motives 
could not but take a deep interest in the disclosures which I was about 
to make, added his urgent remonstrances to those of some of the Car- 
dinals. In the name of his Order, and in that of the Holy See, he im- 
plored me, with tears in his eyes, to renounce the publication of this 
history. They persuaded even the sovereign pontiff, Pins the Ninth, 
to interpose his Avishes and his authority in support of their counsels 
and their remonstrances. 

The good Catholic must have yielded, but the author was 
inexorable. In vain Cardinals implored ; vain were the burst- 
ing tears of the General of the Company ; vain was the judge- 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



247 



ment of Infallibility itself. The stern sense of justice, the 
rigid love of truth in an historian of the Jesuits, admitted no 
compromise, disdained all timid prudence, inflexibly rejected 
prayers, tears, commands. The hesitating printers were ordered 
to proceed — the irrevocable work went on. Shall we betray 
our want of charity if we suggest a further motive for this lofty 
determination ? To us Keviewers, unhappily its most pitiable 
victims, and therefore endowed with a peculiar acuteness in 
discerning its workings, a new passion seems to have taken 
possession of the human heart, and to vie with those old and 
vulgar incentives, the love of fame, money, power, and plea- 
sure. It partakes, to a certain degree, of some of these, but it 
surpasses them all in its intensity — we mean the love of book- 
making and of publishing books. Men have sacrificed their 
children, their sons and their daughters ; men have abandoned 
their country at the call of duty, have given up place, have 
vacated seats in Parliament, have neglected profitable in- 
vestments of capital ; but who has ever suppressed a book 
which he expected to make a noise in the world ? 

The dreadful epilogue, then, has issued from the press ; but 
we must ingenuously acknowledge, that if any unconscious anti- 
papal prepossession disturbed the native candour of our mind, 
it has by no means found full gratification. We have not been 
shocked so much as we hoped by our author's disclosures. We 
cannot think that the fears of the Cardinals will be altogether 
realized. The devoted heroism of the General of the Jesuits, 
who would sacrifice the interests, and even the revenge of his 
Order against a hostile pontiff, rather than expose the ques- 
tionable proceedings of a holy conclave, and the weakness, at 
least, if not worse, attributed to a Pope — even the natural 
solicitude of good Pius IX. for the unsullied fame of all his 
predecessors — all these, we suspect, have been called forth 
without quite adequate cause. The Papacy has undergone 
more perilous trials — recovered from more fatal blows. We 
can, in short, hold out no hopes to Exeter Hall that their 
denunciations against the Lady in bright attire are hastening 



248 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



to their accomplishment— that Antichrist is about to fall by 
a parricidal hand— that M. Cretineau Joly's is the little book 
of the Eevelations which is to enable them to pronounce the 
hour of the fall of Babylon. 

To the high ultramontane theory it may indeed be difficult 
to reconcile these revelations. We cannot be surprised that 
the historian of the Jesuits should have some serious mis- 
givings when about to immolate a pope to the fame of the 
suppressed order— to display (as he thinks he displays) a 
pontiff, raised to his infallibility by unworthy covenants, at 
least bordering on simony ; afterwards endeavouring by every 
subterfuge to avoid the payment of the price for which he had 
sold himself; and at length on compulsion only fulfilling the 
terms which he had signed, issuing with a cruel pang the fatal 
bull which he himself knew to be full of falsehood and iniquity, 
and dying literally of remorse. 

Such is the pious scope of M. Cretineau Joly's tome. 2 We who 
have nothing to do with the delicate question of papal infalli- 
bility, cannot think that our author has made out his case 
against Clement XIV. G-anganelli, we still think, was a good 
and an enlightened man; whose end was calamitous because he 
wanted the decision and inflexibility absolutely necessary for 
carrying out the policy which he had fearfully, perhaps re- 
luctantly undertaken. It required the energy of a Hildebrand 
either boldly to confront Europe, which was trembling in its 
allegiance, not merely to the Papacy, but to Christianity itself; 
or to break with the past, and endeavour by wise and well- 
timed alterations to rule the future. G-anganelli was unequal 
but who would have been equal to the crisis ? Count St. 

2 M. Cretineau Joly supposes a tacit confederacy of Jansenism, Protestantism, 
Philosophism, Rationalism, Atheism, to hunt the Jesuits, the sole safeguard of 
Christianity, from the earth ; and a regularly organized conspiracy of the ministers 
Cioiseul, Florida Blanca, and Pombal, to expel them from the dominions of Prance, 
Spain, and Portugal. The former allegation is true enough, if it means only that 
a fervid hatred of the Jesuits was common to some of the most religious and many 
of the most irreligious of mankind, though none protested against the bad usage 
they met with more strenuously than Voltaire, DAlembert, and Frederick II. The 
conspiracy of Choiseul and Co. is a dream. 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



249 



Priest, in his recent work, has related the Fall of the J esuits ; 
their expulsion — sudden, unresisted, almost unregretted, at least 
not attended or followed by any strong popular movement in 
their favour — from Portugal, from Spain, from France, and even 
from some of the states of Italy. The ' Chute des Jesuites ' 
has been translated into English. 3 It is written with spirit 
and eloquence ; and, on the whole, with truth and justice. 
Though it is described by M. Cretineau Joly as little trust- 
worthy (pew vevidique), we do not discover much difference in 
the facts, as they appear in the two accounts ; nor, where these 
differ, do we think the advantage is with the later writer. But 
though this preliminary history is necessary, at least in its 
outline, to the understanding of 6 Clement XIV. and the 
Jesuits,' the fall — the inevitable fall of the Order may be 
traced, and briefly, to a much higher origin. 

The Jesuits, soon after their foundation, had achieved an 
extraordinary victory. After the first burst of the Eeformation 
they arrested the tide of progress. The hand on the dial had 
gone back at their command. They had sternly, unscrupu- 
lously, remorselessly — in many parts of Europe triumphantly — 
fought their battle. Where the mighty revolution could only, 
in all human probability, have ended in anarchy, their triumph 
was followed with beneficial results ; where, as in England, 
there were materials for the construction of a better system, 
by (rod's good providence they were frustrated in their designs. 
They had terrified the sovereigns of Europe by the regicidal 
doctrines of some of their more daring writers. These doctrines 
had been carried into effect by some mad fanatics, and the like 
attempted by more. 

Peace was restored ; and from that period the Eoman Catholic 
kings of Europe were for the most part under the dominion of 
the Jesuits. Through them, and by them, monarchs ruled. 
The Jesuit director was a secret, irresponsible, first minister of 
the crown, whom no court intrigue could supplant, no national 



In Murray's Home and Colonial Library. 



250 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. 

remonstrance force into resignation— he was unshaken alike 
by royal caprice, by aristocratic rivalry, by popular discontent. 

Throughout the same period the Jesuits, if they did not pos- 
sess a monopoly, had the largest share in public education. 
Inheriting the sagacity which had induced their great founders 
to throw off all needless incumbrance of older monastic habits 
and rules, and accommodating themselves with the same con- 
summate skill to the circumstances of the age, they had 
endeavoured to seize upon, to pre-occupy, the mind of the 
rising generation. Their strength was in their well-organized 
technical plan of instruction— in their manuals ; but above all 
in their activity, in their watchfulness, their unity of purpose. 
They had attempted, it has been well said, to stereotype the 
mind of Europe. They had been the only schoolmaster abroad ; 
they had cast every branch of learning, every science in their 
mould ; they had watched every dawning genius, and pressed 
it into their service ; they possessed everywhere large establish- 
ments, enormous wealth, emissaries as secret and subtle as un- 
seen spirits, working to this one end, moving with one impulse. 

This dominion lasted, with greater or less interruption in 
different countries, for about two centuries ; and all this time 
these royal races were gradually becoming worn out and effete. 
How far physical infirmities, from perpetual intermarriages, 
may have contributed to this result, it is beyond us to decide ; 
but, with rare exceptions, the mental growth appears to have 
been stunted and dwarfed. With all the fears, but without 
the noble aspirations of the salutary restraints of religion, they 
were at once inflexibly orthodox— orthodox to the persecution 
of all dissentients— punctilious in all the outward formalities 
of Catholicism, and unblushingly, indescribably profligate. In 
some cases, especially in Spain, secluded as much as Oriental 
despots from all intercourse even with the nobility, they forgot 
or seemed unconscious of their divine mission, the welfare of 
their kingdom. The affairs of state were abandoned to an 
upstart minister or an imperious mistress. Their most harm- 
less occupation was in the sports of the field or costly pomps 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 251 

and ceremonies : disgraceful intrigues and orgies had ceased by- 
degrees to shock the public morals. M. Cretineau Joly has 
described in Joseph of Portugal the character of his class : — 
<Ce prince, comme la plupart des monarques de son siecle, 
etait soupconneux, timide, faible, voluptueux, toujours pret a 
accorder sa confiance au moins digne et au plus courtisan.' 
But who had been chiefly concerned in the training — under 
whose influence, if not direct spiritual guidance, had grown up, 
or rather had dwindled down, this race of sovereigns ? 

At the close of this period what was the general state of the 
Continent ? Keligion had become a form, a habit, a conven- 
tional discipline. The morals of the higher orders were fear- 
fully corrupt — the ignorance of the lower preparing them for 
the wildest excesses when the tocsin of revolution should sound. 
In most countries — in Italy, Spain, Portugal — the intellect of 
man might seem dead ; the creative fires of genius in arts and 
letters wavered, expired. Here and there, perhaps, some bold 
effort was made. An eccentric philosopher, like Vico, uttered 
his oracles, prudently, or at least fortunately, wrapped in dark- 
ness and ambiguity — not only not comprehended, but utterly 
disregarded in his own clay. In France, the one intellectual 
nation, the great and ubiquitous bodyguard of the Papacy 
must succumb, as to their bolder ultramontane theories, 
before the pride and power of Louis XIV. The Great 
Monarch and the Great Nation reject the vulgar, abject 
subordination to the supremacy of Kome ; they will remain 
Catholics, but will not be without some special and distinctive 
prerogative. The Gallican Church, according to the happy 
phrase of Gioberti, set itself up as a permanent Anti-pope. 
In France, therefore, the Jesuits must content themselves with 
sharing with the mistress wife, Le Tellier with Madame de 
Maintenon, the compensatory satisfaction of persecuting the 
Protestants, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the 
Dragonnades. 4 

4 M. St. Priest, in his preface, has described with perfect truth their rule over 
Louis XIV. ' Le plus tier des hommes, le plus independant des rois, ne connut 



252 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



But while some of the loftier minds, like Bossuet, were ab- 
sorbed in building up their system and asserting the immemo- 
rial, traditional, and exceptional independence of the Gallican 
Church — while gentler spirits, like Fenelon, were losing them- 
selves in mysticism— the more profound religion of France 
broke at once with the cold formalism, the prudent expediency, 
the casuistic morality, the unawakening theology of Jesuitism. 
Jansenism arose. Protestant in the groundwork of its doctrine, 
in its naked Augustinianism ; Protestant in its inflexible firm- 
ness, in the conscious superiority of its higher spirituality ; 
most humbly Catholic in its language to the see of Rome ; 
Catholic in its rigid asceticism ; Catholic, or rather mediaeval, 
in all its monastic discipline and in its belief in miracles — it 
declared war against Jesuitism, whicli accepted the challenge 
to internecine battle. Pascal sent out the 6 Provincial Letters :' 
Jesuitism staggered: rallied, but never recovered the fatal 
blow. No book was ever so well-timed, or so happily adapted 
to its time. Independent of its moral power, which appealed 
with such irresistible force to the unquenchable sentiment of 
right in the heart of man, that which resists all tampering 
with the first sacred principles of integrity and truth, the very 
office and function of casuistry — at a period when the French 
language had nearly attained, or was striving to attain, that 
exquisite vividness, distinctness, objectivity of style, which is 
its great characteristic, appeared the most admirable model of 
all these qualifications. At a period when high aristocratic 

d'autre joug que celui des Jesuites, le porta par crainte et l'imposa a son peuple, a 
sa cour, a sa famille. Une jeune princesse, qu'il airaait, non pas comme son enfant, 
ce serait trop peu dire, mais comme lui-meme, osa refuser les derniers aveux a un 
confesseur jesuite, et n'echappa a la disgrace que par la mort. Partout leur 
presence se fit rudement sentir. Un Jesuite, la bulle Unigenitus a la main, deve- 
nait l'arbitre de la Trance et la remplit de terreur. Des eveques, dont il avait fait 
ses esclaves, veillaient au lit de mort du Grand Koi, et lui defendaient la reconcili- 
ation et l'oubli ; plus tard ce moine rentra dans la poussiere, mais son esprit lui 
survecut. Qui ne rappelle les billets de confession? Des mourants, faute de 
s'associer aux haines des Jesuites, succomberent sans recevoir les consolations de 
l'Eglise.' ' Their success was complete : they ruled, without contest, the con- 
sciences of the great and the education of youth. They alone were exempt from 
taxation to which the clergy were compelled to yield,' &c— P. vii. 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. ^6 

social manners and a brilliant literature had sharpened and 
refined to the utmost the passion and the nice and fastidious 
taste for wit— came forth this unique example of the finest 
irony, the most graceful yet biting sarcasm, this unwearying 
epigram in two volumes. The Jansenists even invaded the 
acknowledged province of their adversaries. The Port Eoyal 
books of education not merely dared to interfere with, but to 
surpass in the true philosophy of instruction, as well as in 
liveliness and popularity, the best manuals of the Jesuits. 5 
Jansenism struck at the heart of Jesuitism: but it was foiled, 
it was defeated ; its convents and its schools were closed ; its 
genius too expired with the first generation of its founders ; 
Arnauld, Pascal, Nicole, Sacy, had no legitimate successors ; it 
became a harsh, a narrow, an unpopular sect ; it retained the 
inflexible honesty and deep religious energy — but the original 
aversion had been not only retained, that sterner element had 
been goaded by persecution and fostered by exclusiveness into 
absolute and inveterate hostility to the established religion. 
Still professedly humble Catholics and loyal subjects, the later 
Jansenists were at heart Dissenters, and in training for severe 
Republicans. But Jansenism, both in its origin as a reasser- 
tion of high religious faith, and to its close as a separate sect, 
was confined within a certain circle. It had followers if not 
proselytes, whose history it might be worth while fully to trace 
out, in Italy and elsewhere : yet everywhere it was the secession, 
the self-seclusion of a few, who either dwelt alone with their 
profound religious convictions and occupations, or communi- 
cated by a timid and mysterious freemasonry with a certain 
circle of kindred minds. They had fallen, and they knew it, 
on ungenial times. Their sympathies were not with the pre- 
vailing religion : they were repelled and revolted by the grow- 
ing irreligion. 

5 It is amusing to observe that but one of the Jesuit books of education keeps its 
ground, and that (is the Duke of Newcastle alive to the fact ?) in daily, hourly use, 
especially in the greatest of our public schools. Who has suspected that every copy 
of sense or nonsense verses composed at Eton may be infected by Jesuitism? The 
Gracilis is a Jesuit book. Let Dr. Hawtrey look to it. 



254 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. 



Thus in Europe, more particularly in France, the result of 
the whole, the melancholy close of two centuries of Jesuit 
dominion, or at least dominance, over the human mind, was in 
the higher orders utter irreligion, or a creed without moral 
influence ; ignorance, and the superstition, without the re- 
straints of religion, among the lower. With the aristocracy 
religion displayed itself as an usage, a form, as a constantly 
recurring spectacle ; it lingered as a habit, perhaps with some 
stirrings of uneasiness at excessive vice, and was ready to offer 
a few years of passionate devotion as a set-off against a life of 
other passions. Never was that compensatory system, which is 
the danger, we will not aver the necessary consequence, of the 
Eomish Confesional and Direction, so undisguised or unmiti- 
gated in its evil effects. A Lent of fasting and retirement 
atoned for the rest of the year, however that year might have 
been spent. The king parted from his mistress, he to the foot 
of his confessor, she perhaps to a convent ; intrigues were sus- 
pended by mutual consent ; the theatres were closed, religious 
music only was heard. Corneille and Moliere gave place to 
Bourdaloue and Massillon ; sackcloth and ashes were the court 
fashions. The carnival had ushered in — more than a carnival 
celebrated the end of this redeeming, this atoning, this all 
absolving season. The past was wiped off, the bankrupt soul 
began life anew on a fresh score ; in an instant all again was 
wild revelry, broken schemes of seduction united again, old 
liaisons resumed their sway, or the zest thus acquired by brief 
restraint gave rise to new ones. The well-bred priest or 
bishop made his bow and retired; or hovered, himself not 
always unscathed, upon the verge of the dissipated circle. The 
director of the royal conscience withdrew his importunate 
presence, or only attended with the Feuille des Benefices, to 
grant some rich and convenient preferment to some high-born 
Abbe ; to place at the head, nominally at least, of some monas- 
tery founded by a St. Bernard, some successful author of gay 
couplets, some wit whose sayings had sparkled from salon to 
salon; to raise to the most splendid prelacies not always 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



255 



Fenelons or Vincents de Paul. M. St. Priest has a rich sad 
story of the religion of Louis XV. 4 You will be damned,' said 
the King to Choiseul. The minister remonstrated, and ven- 
tured to observe that his Majesty ought to be under some ap- 
prehensions, considering his exalted station, by which 4 elle 
avait de plus que ses sujets le tort du scandale et le danger 
de l'exemple.' 4 Nos situations,' replied Louis, 4 sont bien 
differentes — je suis l'oint du Seigneur!' — (p. 47.) The King- 
explained his views, says M. St. Priest, that Grod would never 
permit the eternal damnation of a Roi tres chretien, fils de St. 
Louis, provided he maintained the Catholic religion. 

Literature had burst its bonds. The Jesuits were reposing 
in contented pride on their old achievements ; they surveyed 
with complacency, as imperishable, unanswerable, the unri- 
valled controversial treatises of Bellarmine, or the ponderous 
tomes of Petavius, who, in desperate confidence in his strength, 
strove to turn the rationalising tendencies of the age in favour 
of an antiquated system, and sacrifice the Bible, the one hope 
and saving power of Christianity, to the waning supremacy of 
the Church : or such compilations as those of Sirmond, who 
rivalled the industry, in some respects the honesty, of the 
great Benedictine scholars. They had indeed, as if even they 
were conscious that something more popular, more effective 
was necessary for their spiritual warfare, their great preacher, 
the most solid, the most judicious, if not the most brilliant of 
that unequalled triad of pulpit orators, Bourdaloue, Bossuet, 
Massillon ; they had the most pleasing of the second order, 
the Pere Neuville. But where were those who could stir the 
depths of the religious heart like the earlier Jansenists, 
Arnauld, Pascal, Nicole ? They had not, perhaps they cared 
not to have, such perilous enthusiasts, to break in upon their 
calm, orderly, and systematic rule ; still less had they those 
who could put on the lighter armour, or wield the more 
flexible weapons which were necessary for the inevitable col- 
lision with the new philosophy. They could not encounter 
wit with that stern rough satire with which it has sometimes 



256 CLEMENT XIV. ASD THE JESUITS. [Essay V. 

been put down, as for instance by Bentley; they could not 
meet malevolent and ignorant misrepresentations of Sacred 
history by plain and popular expositions of the genuine Sacred 
writings, still less by the vernacular Bible itself, for which 
they had not prepared the mind— nay, rather, had overlaid and 
choked the innate feeling which would have yearned towards 
it : they wrote nothing which could be read, published nothing 
which obtained circulation ; they continued to compile and to 
study folios, when Europe was ruled by pamphlets and tales. 
They could not perceive that mankind had outgrown their 
trammels ; and, without strength or pliancy to forge new ones, 
they went on riveting and hammering at the old broken links. 
On one memorable occasion they attempted to advance with 
the tide ; but so awkwardly, as to earn ridicule for the un- . 
couthness of the effort, rather than admiration for its courage. 
What must have been the effect of the famous Preface to 
Newton's Principia, on the religious, on the irreligious— on 
those especially who were wavering in their allegiance to the 
faith ? To the former class the acknowledgment that the new 
astronomy, though of undeniable truth, was irreconcilable 
with the decrees, or at least with the established notions of 
the Church, must have been a stunning shock; among the 
others it could not but deepen or strengthen contempt for a 
faith which refused to harmonize with that truth which it 
dared not deny. We have always thought it singularly for- 
tunate that this question arose in England at a time when 
our Biblioiatry had not attained its height. No sooner had 
Bentley from the post, then authoritative, of the pulpit in 
the University of Cambridge, and in his Boyle Lectures, 
showed the perfect harmony of the Newtonian Astronomy with 
a sound interpretation of the Bible, than men acquiesced in 
the rational theory that the Scriptures, unless intended to 
reveal astronomical as well as moral and religious truth, could 
not but speak the popular language, and dwell on the apparent 
phenomena of the universe in terms consistent with those 
appearances. 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



257 



But while in Europe Jesuitism, unprogressive, antiquated, 
smitten with a mortal lethargy, retained any hold on the 
human mind only by the prestige of position, an ail-embracing 
organization, and a yet unextinguished zeal for proselytism 
among the rising youth : — in its proper sphere — in more 
remote regions — it was still alive and expansive. It was still 
the unrivalled missionary ; it was winning tribes, if not nations, 
to Christianity and to civilization. 

In the East, indeed, the romance of its missions had passed 
away with Xavier and his immediate followers. In all that 
world their success had ceased to be brilliant, and their pro- 
ceedings became more and more questionable. The much- 
admired Chinese had become more and more blind and 
obdurate to the teachings of Christianity : still, however, they 
fully appreciated European knowledge — they retained the 
Jesuits in high honour as scientific instructors, while they 
treated them with secret or with open contempt as preachers 
of religion. In other parts of the East the fatal quarrels 
between the Protestant and the Eoman Catholic, and the still 
fiercer collisions between the different orders of the Eoman 
Catholic missionaries, had darkened the once promising pro- 
spects of Christianity. The Jesuits were accused of carrying 
their flexible principle of accommodation to such an extent, 
that instead of converting idolators to the faith, they had 
themselves embraced idolatry. Europe had rung with recla- 
mations against their overweening arrogance, their subtle 
intrigues, their base compliances. The work of the Capucin 
friar Norbert, which embodied all these charges, had made a 
strong impression at Eome. They had been condemned by 
more than one Pope ; but, at that distance, while they still 
professed their profound, unresisting, passive obedience to the 
See of Eome, they delayed, they contested, they sent back 
remonstrances ; they complained of being condemned on 
unfair, partial, and hostile statements ; appealed to the Pope 
against the Pope ; disregarded mandates, eluded bulls ; did 
everything but obey. The Cardinal Tournon was sent out to 

s 



258 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. 

make inquiries, and with summary powers of decision on the 
g p t ; — they harassed him to death. 

But, if it fared thus with them in the oldest part of the 
Old World, in the New they were the harbingers, the bold 
and laborious pioneers of discovery ; the protectors, the bene- 
factors, the civilizers of the indigenous races. If in North 
America the Eed man could ever have maintained a separate 
and independent existence ; if he could have been civilized, 
and continued as a progressive improving being, it would have 
been by the Jesuits. If in those trackless wilds was found 
any rivalry between the different orders and their missionaries, 
it was the generous rivalry of religious adventure, of first 
exploring the primeval forest, the interminable prairie, of 
tracing the mighty river, of bringing new tribes into the 
knowledge of the White men, of winning their confidence, 
learning their languages, taming them, and endeavouring to 
impart the first principles of Christian faith by the ministra- 
tions of Christian love. Mr. Bancroft, in his history of his 
own country, has well told, and told with truly liberal sym- 
pathy, the history of the Jesuit missions of North America. 
It is impossible not to pause with admiration on such efforts, 
although they were in their nature desultory, and led to no 
permanent results. But it was far otherwise in South America : 
in Paraguay the Jesuits had founded those republics, those 
savage Utopias, the destruction of which was the crime and 
calamity attendant on the abolition of the Order. There they 
had free scope ; their wisdom and benevolence, their love of 
rule, working on congenial elements, brought forth their fruits 
abundant, without exception! Among the South American 
Indians, child-like absolute submission was advancement, hap- 
piness, virtue; the mild unoppressive despotism a fatherly 
government. It would have required years, perhaps centuries, 
before those simple tribes had outgrown the strong yet gentle 
institutions under which they were content to live. We have 
directed attention on another occasion to the singular resem- 
blance between the institutions of the Jesuits in Paraguay and 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



259 



those of primitive Peru. In Paraguay, the Jesuits were the 
Manco Capacs of a poorer, more docile, more gentle, but not 
less happy race. Nothing could be more unjust, ungrateful, 
or impolitic, than the conduct of Spain and Portugal with 
regard to that country. By their reckless and capricious 
exchange of vast, and almost unknown territories, the sove- 
reigns or their cabinets destroyed with one stroke of a pen the 
work of centuries ; they seem not to have wasted one thought 
on the great experiment, which for the first time was making 
with any hopes of success, towards raising up in the depths 
of South America a race of Christian subjects, who would 
never have denied their allegiance to their European master. 
If all accusations against the Company of Jesus had been 
equally groundless with those adduced against them on this 
subject, history would fearlessly have recorded its verdict in 
their favour. 

They were charged with breaking the rule of their Order 
by engaging in commerce. In other countries, and more 
especially in the well known case of Lavalette, there was no 
doubt strong foundation for the charge ; but here their utmost 
crime could have been only the assisting those whose territory, 
by their well regulated system of industry, they had made pro- 
ductive, in exporting their surplus commodities, and exchanging 
them for others which they might need. They were afterwards 
arraigned as having stimulated resistance among the Indians, 
who had been transferred by a few lines of ink from one crown 
to another. The resistance never took place — it was altogether 
imaginary and fabulous ; and though to excite it might have 
been unbecoming and inconsistent in the sworn servants of 
passive obedience to authority civil as well as ecclesiastical, we 
are almost liberal enough to think that to follow such advice, 
if given, might have been justifiable on the part of the 
Indians. The whole affair is a melancholy illustration of the 
ignorance, supercilious arrogance, and utter disregard of the 
great interests of humanity, too common among the statesmen 
of that period. We do not indeed see why the abrogation of 

s 2 



260 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. 

the Order in Europe should have inferred necessarily the 
destruction of their great work in South America ; they might 
have maintained their authority there under a commission 
from the crown, not as a religious society, but as a kmd of 
civil government, a local administration under certain regu- 
lations, subordinate and responsible to the mother country 
The most curious part of this whole transaction is, that Pombal 
feared, or affected to fear, that negotiations were going on 
between the Jesuits and the court of London, either to .declare 
the independence of the settlements in Paraguay under the 
protection of England, or to annex them to the domimons of 
the British crown. He speculates, in a remarkable despatch 
published by M. St. Priest, on the appearance of a British 
armament in the river Plate (in case Portugal should join 
France and Spain in a war with England), and seems to enter- 
tain no doubt that they would be welcomed, and received as 
allies by the whole Jesuit order. Conceive at that period, 
some' fifteen years before Lord George Gordon's riots, Jesuit 
republics in South America under the patronage, if not re- 
ceived as subjects of George III. ! 

But we must proceed to the fall of the J esuits, thus inevitable 
in Europe, not, as we have said, from any deliberate and 
organized confederacy against them, but brought to an imme- 
diate crisis by accidental circumstances-the hatred of an 
ambitious and upstart minister in Portugal, the pretended 
religions scruples of a royal mistress in France, the aversion 
which sprung from fear in the mind of the best and most 
rational king that had ruled in Spain since the accession of the 
Bourbons— the one of that breed that had some will of his own. 
Their horn was come; they had fulfilled their mission; the 
world was far beyond them-the eighteenth century had passed 
its zenith, it was declining towards its awful close : that which 
was of the sixteenth, notwithstanding its pliancy, and power of 
accommodation to political and social change, was out of date. 
The world was utterly astonished at the ease with which it shook 
off the yoke of the Jesuits. There had been a vague and almost 



Essay V.] 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



261 



universal awe of their power, wealth, and influence. They had 
been supposed to have a hold in every family, if not on the 
attachment, on the fears of every Eoman Catholic heart. They 
were thought to possess the secrets not only of every court, but 
of every private household ; to conduct a secret correspondence 
extending over all Christendom, and propagated with the speed 
of an electric telegraph ; to command enormous wealth, un- 
scrupulously obtained, and expended as unscrupulously ; to 
transmit orders with a fine and imperceptible touch, like the 
spider, to the extremity of their web, in constant and blind 
obedience to which every Jesuit in every part of the world 
bent all his faculties, and concentrated all these influences 
on the immediate object: as their enemies asserted, and many 
who were not their enemies believed, if that object was the 
power, the fortunes, the life of any devoted individual, he was 
suddenly struck by some unseen hand ; he was carried off by 
some inscrutable means. From each of the great Eoman 
Catholic kingdoms this formidable body was expelled unresist- 
ing, under circumstances of extreme harshness and cruelty, by 
measures of gross injustice, executed in a manner to excite the 
compassionate sympathy of all the candid and generous. In 
Portugal, the adventurer Pombal led the way ; and this 
upstart minister dared to crush by one blow, to involve in one 
common ruin, the Jesuit community and the old nobility of 
the land. This too by acts of the most insulting and revolting 
cruelty — especially the public execution of the greatest family 
in the country, even its females, as concerned in a conspiracy 
against the life of the king — a conspiracy, no doubt, real, but 
stretched to comprehend all those whose ruin had been sworn 
by Pombal. The Jesuits were not merely driven without mercy 
from the realm, but some, especially Malagrida, at the worst a 
dreaming enthusiast, probably a harmless madman, were burned 
for heresy. Pombal employed the Inquisition to sear, as it were, 
the last vestiges of Jesuitism. 

The Duke de Choiseul, the libertine and unbelieving minister 
of Louis XV., extorted the condemnation of the Jesuits from 



262 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



the reluctant and superstitious king. A few parliaments feebly 
remonstrated, a few unregarded voices were raised against the 
sacrifice ; but it was accomplished without the least difficulty 
or struggle. In Spain Charles III. had thrown himself among 
the adversaries of the Order with something almost of personal 
hostility. The Jesuits had been seized with all the secresy of 
a conspiracy, at one moment throughout Spain, embarked in 
wretched and insufficient vessels, and insultingly cast, as it were, 
on the Pope's hands, to maintain them as he might, with 
hardly a pittance out of their confiscated property. 6 Naples 
and Parma had followed the example; Piombino, Venice, 
Bavaria, all but Austria, either openly joined, or were prepared 
to join, the an ti- Jesuit league. 

About this juncture died Clement XIII. (Eezzonico). This 
Pope— a man of profound piety, with views of the supremacy 
hardly lower than those of Hildebrand or Boniface VIII. — had 
stood alone against Europe in favour of the Jesuits, as the 
great champions of the Papacy and of Catholicism ; he had ap- 
proved the saying uttered by, or attributed to, their inflexible 
general, Lorenzo Eicci, on the proposition to appoint a vicar 
of the order in France : ' Sint ut sunt, aut non sint.' He had 
threatened an interdict against the Duke of Parma. The duke, 
strong in the support of the kings of France, Spain, and 

6 As to a passage connected with this business, on which M. C. Joly impeaches 
the accuracy of M. de St. Priest, that writer has adopted the very language of the 
French ambassador at Rome, M. d'Aubeterre. When the Spanish Jesuits, to the 
number of 6,000, had been suddenly seized, crowded into small vessels, more like 
slave-ships than transports, with hardly any provisions, and under orders to dis- 
charge them at once upon the Papal territory, the Pope, indignant at this insult, 
added to injustice and cruelty, and fearing the famine which this sudden importa- 
tion might cause among his people, issued directions to warn off the Spanish vessels 
by turning the guns of Civita Vecehia against them. The general of the Order 
had acquiesced in this hard necessity. The Jesuits, thus as it seemed to them in- 
hospitably driven from those shores by their natural protectors, broke out, according 
to M. d'Aubeterre, in loud murmurs, clamours, even curses against the Pope and 
their own superior. And is it prima facie improbable that some, that many of 
these poor, starved, sickness-suffering men, under a blazing sun, heaped together 
like bales of Africans in the middle passage, could not control their natural indig- 
nation, forgot that they were Jesuits, and remembered that they were men ? Or 
shall we say that all this was not pardonable even in monks inured to the most 
entire and prostrate submissiveness ? 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 26<5 

Naples, replied in a tone of haughty defiance; these powers 
threatened, and, indeed, commenced hostilities. Maria Theresa, 
to whom alone the Pope could look for succour, coldly refused 
to involve herself in a war for such an unworthy object. 
Clement XIII. (writes M. St. Priest) ' etait un pape du 
douzieme siecle egare dans le dix-huitieme.' On February 9, 
1769, broken-hearted, as it is said, at the prostrate state of the 
Papacy, he was released from this perilous strife. 

On the 13th of the same month met that Conclave, the 
secrets of which M. Cretineau Joly professes to reveal with a 
damning distinctness — impelled, in spite of all remonstrances, 
to drag to light with remorseless conscientiousness all the base 
manoeuvres, intrigues, acts and threats of violence, corruptions, 
venalities, simonies, and weaknesses which disgraced that august 
assembly. We, who in the course of our historical studies have 
caught glimpses, at least, if not clear revelations of the pro- 
ceedings of other conclaves, contemplate his picture (as we have 
already hinted) without the anticipated surprise. From those 
days, centuries before the election was vested in the College of 
Cardinals, when the heathen historian describes the streets of 
Eome as running with blood in the contest between Damasus 
and Urcisinus — from the days when Theodoric the Ostrogoth 
and the Exarch of Eavenna were compelled to interpose in 
order to maintain the peace of the capital— down through the 
wild tumults of the ninth and tenth centuries— the succession 
of Popes at Avignon, appointed by the court of France— the 
frequent collisions of pope and anti-pope, till the Councils of 
Pisa and Constance took on themselves to decide between three 
infallible heads of Christendom— the less violent but not less 
antagonistic struggles of the great European powers to obtain 
a pontiff in the French, or Spanish, or Austrian interest — 
throughout the papal history, in a word, the election of the 
Bishop of Eome has been the centre either of fierce conflict or 
subtle diplomatic negotiation. All the great Eoman Catholic 
States were now leagued together for one end — the abolition of 
the Jesuits ; to this they were solemnly pledged by their own 



264 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



irrevocable acts, by their pride, and by their fears — it might be 
by a strong conviction as to the wisdom of their policy, as well 
as by that hatred which becomes more intense from its partial 
gratification, and from the lurking suspicion of the injustice 
with which it has wreaked itself on its victim. We have read, 
therefore, these disclosures with considerable equanimity ; it 
moves no wonder that, at such a juncture, such scenes should 
take place within the venerable walls of the Monte Cavallo ; 
we feel neither less nor more respect for the Papal See. Still, 
though without actual astonishment, we cannot trace without a 
lively curiosity, day by day, the acts of a Eoman Conclave, the 
struggle of interests, the play of passions, the lights and shades 
of opposed characters, the tentative processes, the bold hazards, 
the skilful advances — the adroit proposal of names without 
pretensions, to cover the real intentions as to more hopeful 
candidates — the well or ill-timed exclusions — the artful ap- 
proximations — the slow or sudden conversions — till at length 
some almost instantaneous impulse or audacious movement 
decides the game : till from all this conflict of subtleties — 
sometimes, we fear, of worse than subtleties— emerges a supreme 
father of Eoman Catholic Christendom ; in later days, we are 
very ready to acknowledge, a pontiff always blameless in cha- 
racter and unimpeachable as to his own religion, usually vene- 
rable, respected, and beloved. 

This Conclave was, of course, divided on the one great ques- 
tion of the day. There was, as there usually has been, a strong 
Italian party, and these, the friends and supporters of the late 
Pope, were called the Zelanti. They were mostly stern ultra- 
montanists, determined to maintain the Jesuits at all hazards : 
the heads of this party were the two Cardinals Albani. The 
adverse or anti-Jesuit interest, which combined the Cardinals of 
France, Spain, and Naples, was at first, before the arrival of 
the Spanish electors, headed by De Luynes and De Bernis, espe- 
cially by the latter. It is from the correspondence of Bernis, 
and of the French ambassador D'Aubeterre, with strong 
confirmations from that of Eoda, the Spanish ambassador, that 
we are about to discover the secrets of this prison-house. 



Essay V.] 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



265 



The Cardinal de Bernis had begun life as a man of wit and 
pleasure, the elegant and courtly abbe of that their palmy 
time. He was a poet, in his early period, light and amatory, 
in the later, serious and religious. We fear that the gay and 
graceful stanzas of his youth found more readers than the 
solemn couplets, the Religion vengee, written when the deeds 
of the French Revolution could not but awaken solemn thoughts 
in a cardinal of the age of Louis XV. 7 In allusion to his first 
style, Voltaire had called him Babet le Boutiquier, from a 
vender of flowers at one of the theatres ; while Frederick II., 
probably with the bitterness of personal dislike, had written : — • 

Evitez de Bernis la sterile abondance. 

In those florid days, it is said that Cardinal Fleury reproved 
the gay abbe for his dissipation : 4 Vous n'avez rien a esperer, 
tant que je vivrai.' ' Monseigneur, j'attendrai,' replied Bernis 
with a respectful bow ; and till Fleury's death he did live in 
poverty, which he supported with such gaiety as to increase his 
social popularity. Preferments at length showered upon him ; 
to what interest he was supposed to owe his red hat, will pre- 
sently appear. De Bernis had shown great talents for business 
in certain negotiations at Venice, and had some aspirations — 
not towards the Papacy — but to the office of Cardinal Secretary 
of.State. He had latterly been out of favour with the court 8 — 
living: in retirement in his diocese of Alby in the south of Fi ance, 
and winning approbation there by his decorous manners and 
liberal charities. AVe may add that, during his later residence 
at Eome, as representative of France, his palace was famous 
throughout Europe, not only for the splendour and the taste 
with which it received all the talent, the wit, the distinction 
of the world in perfect social ease, but at the same time for 
the dignified decency which became a prince of the Church. 

This remarkable Conclave had met on the loth of February, 
thirteen days after the death of Clement XIII. A desperate 

7 He died at Rome, in ] 791, above seventy years old. 

8 It was just before his disgrace that he received his cardinal's hat. ' C'est uti 
parapluie que le roi a bien voulu me donner contre le mauvais temps.' 



266 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



attempt had been made by the Italian zealots to precipitate 
the election, while it was almost in their own power, before the 
electors usually residing in Spain or even in France could arrive. 
The Cardinal Chigi wanted only two voices to secure his elec- 
tion. The French and Spanish ambassadors protested with the 
utmost vehemence against this proceeding. They even threat- 
ened, according to our author, that France, Spain, Portugal, 
and Naples would withdraw their allegiance from the Papal See. 
The more moderate cardinals, from base timidity, or, according 
to M. Cretineau Joly, a mistimed though excusable desire for 
conciliation (he says nothing of the flagrant injustice of depri- 
ving their colleagues of their right of suffrage), refused to 
proceed further till the Conclave was full. Early in March 
arrived De Bernis — -but he was only the ostensible head of the 
anti-Jesuit party ; he was but their manager within the Con- 
clave. It had been hoped that, by his fascinating manners 
and his knowledge of the world, he might deal on more equal 
terms with the subtle Italian cardinals ; but in fact he was to 
move only as directed by persons more entirely in the confidence 
of the cabinets of Versailles and Madrid. 

The majority of the Sacred College (says M. Joly) was no doubt 
adverse to the wishes of the Bourbons: endeavours were made to modify 
it according to their views, first by corruption, afterwards by violence. 
The Marquis d'Aubeterre, Thomas Azpuru (Archbishop of Valentia), 
Nicholas d'Azara, and Count Kaunitz undertook to play this part. 
They had accomplices in the Conclave. They wrote, they received 
communications, both officious and official (officieuses et officielles), 
from the Cardinal de Bernis and the Cardinal Orsini. The ministers of 
Louis XV. and of Charles III. sent instructions from Paris and Madrid. 
It is in this autograph correspondence, of which no one suspected 
the existence, that the proofs are to be sought of the inveterate hatred 
(acharnement) against the Jesuits. This hatred degraded ambassadors, 
confessors, the ministers of the most Christian King and of the Catholic 
King, into intriguers of the lowest class. — P. 212. 

' By a series of accidents (proceeds our author) which can only 
have an attraction for the curious, but no historical interest 
whatever, these autograph documents relating to the Conclave 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 267 

of 1799 have fallen into my hands.' With all respect to M. 
Cretineau Joly, the manner by which he has obtained these 
documents, if they are as important as he supposes, must be of 
very great historical interest. On that question must depend 
their genuineness, their authenticity, their fulness, their 
freedom from interpolation, and from the suppression of incon- 
venient passages; in short, their whole historical value and 
credibility. Through whose hands have they passed ? are they 
entirely free from party manipulation? are they the whole, 
unbroken correspondence? how far do they agree with the 
other authentic documents cited from the French archives by 
Count St. Priest, and by other earlier and later writers ? We 
are rather too well versed in this kind of inquiry to receive 
with full trust extracts from documents even when presented to 
us by the most honest writers— writers absolutely without 
prepossession or partiality. With no impeachment on the 
integrity of M. Cretineau Joly, he would scarcely wish us to 
rank him in that class. Without some satisfaction for these 
doubts, we cannot rightly appreciate 

the luminous discovery by the aid of which it is possible to follow, 
step by step, minute by minute, the plot which great criminals and men 
of extraordinary improvidence organized, out of hatred to the Jesuits, 
against the dignity of the Church. . . . Nor are dissolute and imbecile 
kings, governed by their mistresses and by their diplomates, the only 
actors on this scene; cardinals and prelates throw themselves into the 
fray. It is this conspiracy which it is necessary to reveal to the Ca- 
tholic world without any timid disguise, but still without passion ; for 
justice to all is the true and only charity of history. 

A sublime sentiment, which our author, somewhat whimsi- 
cally, closes with this sentence from S. Francois de Sales: 
'C'est charite que de crier au loup quand il est entre les 
brebis, voire ou qu'il soit,' If charity consists < in crying wolf,' 
M. Joly is a model of this cardinal virtue. Then comes the 
usual quotation from Cardinal Baronius, who first struck out 
the happy thought of raising an argument for the uninterrupted 
authority of the Apostolic See from the flagrant, total, and 
acknowledged interruption of all apostolic virtues during 



268 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



certain periods of the Papal history. Nothing but the manifest 
favour of Grod could have restored the Papacy, after it had sunk, 
in the days of Theodora and Marozia, to such utter degradation. 

Let us accompany, under our author's guidance, the Cardinal 
de Bernis (in the month of March) into the Conclave. He was 
anxiously awaited by Cardinal Orsini, who conducted the Nea- 
politan interest, and had almost stood alone in counteracting 
the march which the Zelanti had endeavoured to steal upon the 
assembly. The first act of Bernis was in violation, we fear 
not unusual, of the fundamental laws of the Conclave — to 
establish a regular correspondence with the ambassador of the 
French court, the Marquis d'Aubeterre. D'Aubeterre had 
already come to something like an understanding with the 
Austrian ambassador, Count Kaunitz. The instructions of 
Maria Theresa to that minister were to support the Jesuits, 
but Kaunitz looked to the rising sun. Her son and heir was 
himself at Eome, and the prince's philosophism must be flattered, 
rather than the antiquated prejudices of the Empress Queen. 
Eoda, the Spanish ambassador, as well as D'Aubeterre, took 
care that his opinions should be known within the Conclave. 
The conduct of Joseph II. and his visit to the Conclave are 
described with some point by Count St. Priest : £ He affected 
the most supercilious indifference as to the question of the 
Jesuits, and even the election of the Pope. He inquired for 
the Cardinal York. The grandson of James II. presented 
himself. Joseph saluted the last of the Stuarts with marked 
attention, and asked to see his cell. " It is very small for your 
highness." In truth Whitehall was much larger.' — St. Priest, 
p. 92. 

But we must examine the Conclave more closely. We find 
the following names, distributed into four classes by the 
Spaniards. 

Eleven were by them considered good: 



Sersale. 

Calvachini. 

Negroni. 



Branciforte. 
Caracciolo. 
Andrea Corsini. 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



269 



Durini. Ganganelli. 
Neri Corsini. Pirelli. 
Conti. 

Six very bad, pessimi ; a glorious title, says our author, in the 

eyes of Christendom : 

Torregiani. Cliigi. 
Castelli. Boschi. 
Buonaccorsi. Rezzonico. 

Fifteen bad : 

Oddi. Lanze. 

Alessandro Albani. Spinola. 

Rossi. Paracciani. 

Calini. Francesco Albani. 

Veterani. Borromeo. 

Molino. Colonna. 

Priuli. Fantuzzi. 
Biifalini. 

Three were doubtful — 

Lante. Stoppani. Serbelloni. 

Nine (M. Cretineau gives but eight) were nothing (nada), or 
indifferent : 

Guglielmi. Malvezzi. 

Canale. Pallavicini. 

Pozzobonelli. York. 

Perelli. Pamphili. 

The Spanish Cardinals, De Solis and De la Cerda— the 
French, Bernis and De Luynes— and the Neapolitan, Orsini, 
are reckoned in none of these categories. 9 

Cardinal de Bernis was furnished, besides this surveillance of 
D'Aubeterre, with instructions from his court. There seem to 
be two such documents : one of an earlier date, printed by 
Count St. Priest, composed before the vacancy, and intended 
for whatever cardinals might eventually be entrusted with the 

• There is some confusion about these lists : here are 48 names, yet Bernis says, 
that the Conclave consisted of only 45 or 46 cardinals, and it appears that 16 (one- 
third of the whole) formed an Exclusive. 



270 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



French interests in a future Conclave : the other, from which 
extracts are given by M. Cretineau Joly, actually addressed to 
Bernis and De Luynes. The former thus advises the French 
cardinal on the character of those with whom he will have to 
deal : — 

No one is ignorant to what extent the Italians carry the science of 
dissimulation : among all the Italians, it may be with truth averred, 
none have carried this to such a point of perfection as the Eomans. 
Individual interests, as well as the national character, have placed them 
under a perpetual necessity of concealing their true sentiments. No 
one has any chance of success if he cannot disguise his real opinions, 
and make them appear to eA^ery one such as will advance his peculiar 
interests. In each case (t. e. whether there is a supreme pontiff or a 
vacancy) it is the great study of every one to mask, by all kinds of 
outward demonstrations, his real thoughts, and to be impenetrable. 
The art of self-concealment is considered by the Eomans as the first 
and most essential to obtain their ends. This perpetual occupation in 
outreaching each other makes them by no means delicate as to what are 
called principles ; with them roguery (friponnerie) is ability; they glory 
in it, and it is their vanity ; hence the verb minchionare, which, happily 
for France, has no corresponding term in the French language. — St. 
Priest, p. 282. 

These instructions refer also to former elections. Cardinal 
Polignac was the only instance of a French diplomatist in the 
Conclave who had ever outwitted the Italians. He had made 
Clement XII. (Corsini) Pope. Tencin had attempted, and 
wellnigh succeeded in favour of Aldrovandi, but had been 
defeated by Annibale Albani, who had carried Lambertini 
(Benedict XIV.). In fine— 

The great test of ability is to find means to make others propose 
what is your own object, and to seem to take no interest in the step. 
The French cardinal has nothing to do but to listen ; to open himself 
to no one as to his opinion on different subjects which may arise : to 
answer all who attempt to sound him, that he comes to no determina- 
tion except in the church. This is the usual language in the Conclave, 
and every one knows what it means. When a name is proposed, and 
begins to gather voices, then he must strain every nerve (faire l'impos- 
sible) to ascertain the numbers. If the candidate is acceptable to 
France, as soon as the French cardinal shall perceive that he can carry 
the election by the voices of his faction, then is the moment to explain 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. ^71 

himself, and to make knoAvn his demands to the person proposed for 
election. It is very seldom that a cardinal who wants but this one 
step to become Pope refuses to agree to whatever may be required of 
him ! 

Such were the general views entertained by the statesmen of 
that day as to the proceedings of a Conclave. They are im- 
portant as enabling us to judge whether any very extraordinary 
means were adopted in 1769. 

The special instructions to Bernis dwelt on the passionate 
and fanatic counsels followed by Clement XIII. (whose sincere 
piety and upright intentions are acknowledged), which had 
compelled France, Spain, the Two Sicilies, Portugal, and Venice 
to assert their rights of sovereignty. 6 The king has no decided 
plan as to the elevation of any pontiff: his exclusive is only 
to be used in case the voices should seem likely to be united in 
favour of some cardinal, whose personal prejudices, particular 
affections, and blind and imprudent zeal might render his 
administration dangerous, if not pernicious and fatal to reli- 
gion and to the tranquillity of the Catholic states— of this 
number are the Cardinals Torregiani, Boschi, Buonaccorsi, and 
Castelli.' 

The first object of Bernis was to obtain an Exclusive — sixteen 
voices. He commanded ten ; six Neapolitans, two French, two 
Spaniards ; and hoped to obtain six more at least among the 
following : Yorke, Lante, the two Corsinis, Ganganelli, G-ug- 
lielmi, Malvezzi, Pallavicini, Pozzobonelli, and Colonna. The 
two latter, as well as Colonna's brother the Prince, had large 
possessions in the kingdom of Naples, and would not, it was 
thought, vote for a Pope unacceptable to that court. 

But already D'Aubeterre began to develop his more de- 
cided views. He suggested to De Bernis that he should make 
the abolition of the Jesuits a preliminary condition. < A car- 
dinal before he is Pope lends himself willingly to anything in 
order to become Pope ; there are many instances of this kind 
of bargain. We must insist on this point alone and reserve all 
others. We must have a written promise, or, if that is refused, 



272 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



a verbal promise in the presence of witnesses.' — P. 219. Bernis 
shrunk from this bold measure ; D'Aubeterre insists that, as it 
only concerns the secularization of a religious order, it cannot 
be considered an unlawful covenant. He recommends Bernis 
to consult Granganelli, one of the most celebrated theologians 
of the day, who had never been suspected of lax moral prin- 
ciples : 4 j'espere que jpeut-etre il rajoprocherait de mon senti- 
ment? 4 No dependence can be placed on what a Pope may do 
after he is elected, if he is not bound down before.' — P. 220. 

Bernis thus describes to Choiseul the persons with whom he 
has to deal : 4 The Sacred College was never composed of more 
pious or edifying persons — but their ignorance and narrowness 
are extreme.' He could not make them comprehend what was 
necessary to prevent them from compromising the Holy See 
with the Powers of Europe. 4 Their whole politics are confined 
within the walls of Monte Cavallo. Daily intrigue is their 
sole occupation, and, unhappily for the peace of the Church, 
their only knowledge.' He writes to D'Aubeterre — 4 Le plus 
grand de tous est de choisir un Pape qui ait la tete assez large 
et assez bien faite pour sacrifier les petites considerations aux 
grandes. Mais ou est-il ce Pape ? Oil est le Secretaire d'Etat 
superieur aux miseres locales de ce pays-ci ? Je le cherche en 
vain.' — D'Aubeterre had flattered Bernis in his hope of being- 
Cardinal Secretary of State himself. — 4 Je ne trouve que quel- 
ques nuances de plus ou de moins dans la mediocrite des uns 
et des autres : car il ne faut pas s'y tromper, on gagnera plus 
sur l'objet interessant des Jesuites avec un homme fort qu'avec 
un homme faible, pourvu qu'il ne soit fanatique.' At that 
time Bernis seems to have apprehended that the other parties 
were uniting in favour of Fantuzzi ; if so, 4 Fantuzzi must have 
secret dealings with the Jesuits.' He speaks favourably of 
Calvachini, 4 who is ten years too old ; ' and, as we shall see 
hereafter, of Granganelli. His great difficulty was to keep his 
colleague De Luynes quiet : — 4 Je n'effarouche personne, et j'ai 
(Dieu merci) persuade au Cardinal de Luynes de ne point trop 
agir et parler. Dans le fond c'est un honnete homme, et qui 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



273 



sera toujours ce que le roi voudra, excepte ce que nous ne 
pourrons pas faire sans nous deshonorer in scecula scecu- 
lorumS 

The Spaniards still delayed ; they had given hopes that they 
would make the speedier journey by sea. They took fright, or 
pretended to take fright, at the sight of the Mediterranean, 
and began their tardy progress by land ; but Bernis had now 
made great way towards an Exclusive. He had nattered the 
older Corsini into a pledge to play the part assigned him; 
Lante had promised his voice ; Conte spoke little, but favour- 
ably ; he was enchanted with Malvezzi. 

An interview (on April 18) with the leaders of the Zealots, of 
which Alexander and John Francis Albani were the spokesmen, 
did not pass off so easily. After a long discussion about the 
Jesuits, both parties seem to have lost their temper, and high 
words ensued, not over seemly in a conclave. 4 We should be 
all equal here,' said Bernis; 'we sit in this assembly by the 
sanu title/ The old Alexander Albani lifted up his red cap — 
N\. ■ 1 . ' . 3 are not here by the same title ; this 

'' . ttino Lot placed on my head by a courtezan.' The 

Pompadour, according to our author, 
aiSj who took his revenge by making Orsini 
drop some significant hints to 6 the old fox,' as to the uncertain 
tenure of his estates in the kingdom of Naples. 

According to M. Cretineau Joly there was an underplot. A 
certain Dufour, described as an agent or spy of Choiseul, acting 
in concert with the Jansenists and philosophers (a strange and 
impossible alliance which haunts the imagination of M. Creti- 
neau), had proposed, three years before the vacancy, to secure 
the election by a summary process, no less than downright 
straightforward bribery. The passage must be given entire : — 

Sans que personne puisse soupconner la moindre chose, on arrivera au 
point de se rendre maitre du futur Conclave. Les cardinaux fraD^ais 
auront la liste des amis et ne feront que les observer. On pourrait 
aj outer au march e fait avec eux que l'argent ne sera delivre qu'apres le 
Conclave, et que sur la parole du Cardinal charge des instructions de la 

T 



274 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS, 



[Essay V. 



Cour ; que de plus, la somme de . . . sera ajoutee a la somme prin- 
cipale pour chaque suffrage que Vami aura procure ; mais avec cette 
condition, que le Cardinal charge des instructions de la Cour en sera 
convaincu, et que celui qu'on aura procure rfaura pas e'te auparavant 
assure. 

This last provision against a cardinal being twice bought is 
exquisite. But after all we have some suspicion of this same 
Dufour, who seems to us not improbably a meddling intriguer, 
anxious to make himself an agent, not with any trust or com- 
mission from Choiseul or any one else. Choiseul, it is ad- 
mitted, declined this unsafe and expensive course ; it was 
taken up, however, by the Spanish Court, and its ministers (for 
the cardinals were even now not yet arrived) had instructions 
accordingly from Madrid. Azparu obeyed, Azara betrayed the 
secret to Bernis. Bernis' objections are capital — 

As to the idee ahandonnee, surely you have bethought yourself that 
such matters are safely entrusted to one individual alone (and one who 
you know beforehand has no scruples), and not to five cr six different 
ministers, and consequently to five or six secretaries ; to five cardinals, 
some of them still friends of those whom we wish to destroy. Who is 
the ecclesiastic imprudent enough (even if he approve of the meagre) 
to entrust his honour to the discretion of so many persons f 

Affairs did not proceed ; day after day passed in plots and 
counter-plots, intrigues and counter-intrigues ; April wore away. 
No less than a miracle, says Bernis, can settle a business in 
which so many are engaged. The great point, the plain, positive, 
signed and sealed and witnessed covenant to abolish the Jesuits, 
was too uncanonical, too simoniacal, at least for the arts of 
Bernis. He himself felt or affected scruples. D'Aubeterre 
plies him with theological authorities, which he had indus- 
triously obtained from some unknown quarter. Bernis suggests, 
that if a cardinal were capable of making so simoniacal a 
bargain, he might perhaps be capable of breaking it. Matters 
do not seem to have been mended by the sudden activity of 
Cardinal de Luynes, who in his correspondence (tout gastrono- 
mique) had hitherto stood aloof from business. He too caught 
the fever of intrigue, and bestirred himself in a combined attack 



Essay V.] 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



275 



upon the Jesuits. We have here likewise an episode of Bernis 
bargaining with Choiseul for the payment of his debts, which 
were enormous, for Bernis was always prodigal and necessitous. 
Unless Choiseul complies with these reasonable demands the 
Cardinal threatens to strike. 

Intimidation was now tried ; the great powers gave actual 
orders to occupy Avignon, Benevento, and other papal territories. 
Once indeed Malvezzi was near success. Malvezzi, Archbishop of 
Bologna, was the prelate who had enchanted Bernis ; but he was 
too enlightened (in Bernis' phrase) — he openly avowed at least 
Grallican opinions — he was the farthest removed from ultramon- 
tane principles of the whole Conclave. He was almost a philo- 
sophe; and a philosophe it was the great object of the Eoman 
Catholic Powers of Christendom (according to our author) to 
place in the Papal chair. We do not quite understand whether 
the exclusive now possessed by France, Spain, and Naples was 
actually employed, so as to decimate the Conclave, and to 
reduce the number of Papable subjects within the narrowest 
limits — or whether this plan was only a matter of deliberation. 
The system of intimidation was, however, carried even further ; 
it was distinctly intimated that if the Conclave persisted in their 
obstinacy, Portugal, France, Spain, and Naples would throw 
off the Papal supremacy. Affairs seemed more inextricably 
involved than ever, except that Fantuzzi was out of the field, 
and Pozzobonelli (Archbishop of Milan, who represented Austria) 
had now become a kind of favourite ; he ' four times a day came 
and made false confidences to Bernis.' Poor Bernis was at his 
wits' end — ' To find out who are the real enemies of the Jesuits 
one must become Grod and be able to read the hearts of men.' 

The Spaniards were now arrived, and not long after their 
arrival on a sudden Bernis received an intimation that every- 
thing was settled, and that he had nothing to do but to bring- 
up all his votes for Cardinal Granganelli. The grave, and silent, 
and serious Spaniards, particularly the Cardinal de Solis, Arch- 
bishop of Seville, who was in the confidence of Charles III. 
and of his minister D'Aranda, had achieved in a few days (by 

T 2 



276 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



one account in eight and forty hours) that on which the elegant 
and loquacious Frenchman had wasted weeks in vain. G-anga- 
nelli had agreed to certain terms ; what they were was not at 
first communicated to Bernis (D'Aubeterre, though he protests 
to the contrary, was probably in the secret). More surprising 
still, secret communications had been going on between the 
Spaniards and the Albanis ; they too, with the Zealots, were 
to vote for Granganelli. The disgust of Bernis is infinitely 
amusing, but there was no help ; he must console his wounded 
vanity by persuading Granganelli that he owed his promotion to 
France. This was Bernis' first and last care. < Au reste je 
ferai savoir a Granganelli des ce soir que sans notre concours 
rien ne reussirait pour lui, et qu'ainsi il doit etre attache a la 
France. II faut qu'il nous craigne un peu, mais pas trop. J e 
crois cette precaution essentielle, sans quoi notre role serait 
absolument passif et ridicule ' (p. 265). Accordingly l'Abbe 
de Lestache (the Conclaviste of Bernis) 6 va a une heure de 
nuit chez le futur Pape. II y porte un Memoire par ou il 
demontre que c'est a la France qu'il doit la tiare ' (p. 267). 
Granganelli submitted to be proposed ; De Bernis and his few 
troops could but follow the general movement. Clement XIV. 
ascended the throne of St. Peter. 

No one impeaches the calm equity of Kanke, or his careful 
fidelity in the use of all documents accessible at the time when 
he wrote. His brief character of Granganelli, therefore, may as 
well be kept in view, while we are examining that now offered 
us : — ; 

Of all the cardinals Lorenzo Ganganelli was, without question, the 
mildest and most moderate. In his youth, his tutor said of him, 1 that 
it was no wonder he loved music, for that all was harmony within him.' 
He grew up in innocent intercourse with a small circle of friends, com- 
bined with retirement from the world, which led him deeper and deeper 
into the sublime mysteries of true theology. In like manner, as he 
turned from Aristotle to Plato, in whom he found more full satisfaction 
of soul, so he quitted the schoolmen for the fathers, and them again for 
the Holy Scriptures, which he studied with all the devout fervour of a 
mind convinced of the revelation of the Word. From this well-spring 
he drank in that pure and calm enthusiasm which sees God in every- 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



277 



thing, and devotes itself to the service of man. His religion was not 
zeal, persecution, lust of dominion, polemical vehemence, but peace, 
charity, lowliness of mind, and inward harmony. The incessant bick- 
erings of the Holy See with the Catholic states, which shook the founda- 
tions of the Church, were utterly odious to him. His moderation was 
not weakness, or a mere bending to necessity, but spontaneous benevo- 
lence and native graciousness of temper.— Ranke's Popes, Austin's trans- 
lation, iii. 212. 

We should with deep regret see this beautifully proportioned 
statue thrown from its pedestal and broken to pieces : not be- 
cause Clement XIV. abolished the Jesuits ; not because he was 
a liberal, as he was sometimes called a Protestant, Pope ; but 
for the sake of our common nature, and our common Christianity, 
which is not rich enough in such examples to afford the loss of 
one. But — 

Curramus praecipites . . . calcemusque Ordinis hostem. 

It is this spotless victim which M. Cretineau Joly, with un- 
averted face, would sacrifice to the manes of the Order. Gan- 
ganelli, according to him, was a man of unscrupulous but 
subtle ambition, who played fast and loose with the supporters 
and the adversaries of the Jesuits, endeavoured to break faith 
with his inexorable creditors, bartered his soul for the Papal 
tiara, lived a few years of miserable remorse— if not of madness; 
and, but for the intervention of a most astonishing miracle, 
would have died in despair — 'unhouseled, unanointed, un- 
annealed.' All this is chiefly made out on the faith of these 
new historical discoveries. 

Now, accepting these documents as imparted to us by the 
historian of the Jesuits, the first great question whether Gan- 
ganelli 6 played most foully ' for the triple crown, rests on three 
points. 1st. What was the agreement which he entered into 
with the Spanish cardinals ? 2nd. How far can he be accused 
of double-dealing, as concealing or dissembling his views con- 
cerning the Jesuits ? 3rd. Was he or was he not honestly and 
conscientiously adverse to the Order ? Did he sincerely believe 
its suppression a wise sacrifice for the peace of the Church ? 



278 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



I. Granganelli may have been ambitious of the papal crown, 
and without blame. He may have devoted himself with true 
Christian heroism to the awful office. He may have thought, 
humanly speaking, the accession of a man of his own mild and 
conciliatory character the only safety of the pontificate. The 
great powers of Europe actually menaced secession ; the ease with 
which they had all expelled the Jesuits, was a fearful omen 
that they would meet with no dangerous resistance — would, 
perhaps, be hailed by the spirit of the times — in breaking for 
ever with Eome. The vitality of the Popedom had not yet 
been tried in such days as when it was saved by the lofty and 
serene patience of Pius VII. : — it was trembling — at least in 
its old stern Hildebrandine character — towards its extinction. 
There was something vague, dreamy, mystic, in the religion, 
and even in the worldly ambition of Granganelli. He is said to 
have listened in youth to predictions of his future greatness ; 
an imaginary popedom may have floated before his imagination 
which should awe mankind by gentleness, and this notion he 
might cherish even throughout the dark dealings of the Conclave : 
the belief in such day-dreams, in an Italian, might not be in- 
consistent with much prudence and even subtlety in his deal- 
ings with men ; nor need he perhaps surrender it till it was 
actually shattered to pieces by the harassing cares of the 
pontifical administration, the imperious demands of the Bour- 
bons, the busy and perilous intrigues of the Jesuit faction, the 
bitter realities and responsibilities at that time so peculiarly 
the doom of him who wore the triple crown. What then was, 
in fact, the agreement of Granganelli with Spain and France ? 
It was a Note in which Granganelli declared — we transcribe our 
author's own words — 4 qu'il reconnait au souverain pontife le 
droit de pouvoir eteindre en conscience la Compagnie de Jesus, 
en observant les regies canoniques ; et qu'il est a souhaiter que 
le futur pape fasse tous ses efforts pour accomplir le voeu des 
couronnes.' M. Cretineau Joly admits that this is not explicit. 
The right in question was one which could not be denied with- 
out annulling the Papal supremacy; the Order subsisted by 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 279 

Papal authority, and might doubtless be abolished by it. The 
Note implied, however, a desire to comply with the wishes of 
the crowns. Our author adds, that though G-anganelli refused 
to commit himself further in writing, he fully explained his 
own views to De Solis. fi He opened his whole soul, and ac- 
knowledged that it was his ambition to reconcile the ponti- 
ficate with the temporal powers; he aspired' — our author 
subjoins this bitter and unwarranted inference — 'to unite them 
in peace over the dead body of the Order of Jesus, and thus to 
obtain restitution of the cities of Avignon and Benevento.' 

But the curious part of all this is, that every fact and every 
circumstance of this wonderful disclosure was perfectly well 
known before. The whole was known probably to Eanke ; it 
was at least surmised pretty clearly by Count St. Priest (p. 402). 

It was known to M. Cretineau Joly himself ; and is found, 
word for word, with the same observations, in the fifth volume 
of his < History of the Jesuits,' p. 333. So far as these new 
discoveries affect the promotion of Granganelli, the cardinals 
might have been spared their anxieties, the General of the 
Order his tears. The character of Clement XIY. stands exactly 
as it did before; and thus far M. Cretineau Joly may take 
comfort in the utter harmlessness, in the unwelcome innocence, 
of his fatal Supplement. 

II. Did, then, Granganelli play a double game, and hold out 
to each party the hope that he was theirs ? It is clear that, at 
the first, he stood aloof ; he might dread the danger of being 
struck down by a random exclusive. It is no less clear that he 
understood and mistrusted Bernis. Nothing could be more 
ungenial to the silent, recluse, and dreaming monk than the 
courtly blandishments, the restless intrigue, and the self- 
importance of the garrulous Frenchman. 1 Oanganelli was one 
of the four named in the original instructions of Choiseul as 
Cardinals whose elevation would be consistent with the interests 

1 It is true that Ganganelli at an after-time became fond of the cardinal poet— 
and his acceptance of the flattery of Voltaire was no doubt the fruit of that inter- 
course ; but we speak of the feelings of the Conclave period. 



280 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. 

of France. Though D'Aubeterre suggested to De Bernis 
G-anganelli as the greatest theologian and casuist, who best 
could resolve the question as to the legality of a covenant for 
the destruction of the Jesuits, he by no means felt confident 
that the decision would be in his favour. Ganganelli's calm 
prudence baffled De Bernis ; he would not be the tool of his 
intrigues. Early in the affair De Bernis writes— 

Si Ganganelli n'avait pas tant de peur de se nuire en paraissant lie 
avec les couronnes, il y aurait pour moi plus de ressources en lui qu'en 
tout autre ; mais cela ne se peut plus ; a force de finesse il gate ses 
affaires ; mais il a ete accoutume" a cette conduite dans son cloitre, et il 
a peur de son ombre ; c'est dommage. — P. 222. 

Again, on April 20, De Bernis- has a little secret coquetry 
(galanterie sourde) with Ganganelli, who promises his voice- 
but, in the meantime, to keep up appearances, votes on the 
other side. 'He does not like the manner in which my col- 
leagues conduct their negotiations, but professes great esteem 
for me ' (p. 228). When Ganganelli, among others, is proposed 
for pope, De Bernis says that 'he is feared, but not of sufficient 
consideration' (p. 230). Much later he writes, 'One must 
have great faith to feel sure that Ganganelli is with us. He 
wraps himself up in impenetrable mystery.' To pass over some 
circumstances, hereafter to be noticed— to the last De Bernis 
found Ganganelli calm and cold, promising nothing, entering 
into no engagement. 

But how were the Zelanti, the Albanis, and their party in- 
duced to vote for Ganganelli ? De Bernis roundly asserts that 
it was the pistoles of Spain which wrought this change ; that 
more than once the Albani had made advances of the kind to 
him (se sont jetes cent fois a ma tete); but as he (Bernis) had 
no money to offer, he was obliged to content himself with 
keeping on good terms with them. 'L'argent comptant vaut 
mieux que toute chose. Si l'Espagne s'attache les Albani par 
de bonnes pensions, elle sera la maitresse de ce pays-ci.' He 
adds that if Azparu has not come down with large sums and 
still larger promises, the Spaniards will, after all, be duped ; 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 281 

that the Albani will only vote for Ganganelli after having 
obtained positive assurances for the maintenance of the Society. 
M. Cretineau Joly assures us, indeed, that De Bernis himself 
utterly destroys these odious suspicions thrown out against the 
Albani; but all that De Bernis says is, that 'they had made 
their own arrangements with Ganganelli.' Of these arrange- 
ments, if made, it is clear that the French Cardinal was not in 
the secret ; and as though M. Cretineau Joly were conscious of 
the weakness of his case, with regard to this supposed retracta- 
tion of the charge of bribery by Bernis, he suddenly bewilders 
his reader at this very instant with a clever irreverent letter of 
Voltaire, which might have come in anywhere else quite as 
well. By thus shocking the religious, and diverting the 
profane, the attention of each class of readers is withdrawn 
from the grave question stirred. Bernis' wounded vanity may 
indeed have ascribed to these coarse means the success of the 
Spaniards in an affair in which he himself had failed ; he may 
have been ambitious of having it in his power to distribute 
large sums of money, and to make magnificent offers ; and he 
may have estimated too highly the influence which he would 
have obtained by such advantages. Still, whatever may be the 
truth of the charge, it remains uncontradicted as far as Bernis 
is concerned. But of all improbable solutions of this difficulty, 
the most improbable is that these subtle and suspicious and 
experienced conclavists were themselves overreached by Gan- 
ganelli, and persuaded by a few careless and doubtful sentences 
dropped at random, that he was a Jesuit at heart. The Albani 
must have known that the Spaniards were negotiating with 
Ganganelli, as well as Ganganelli and the Frenchman 
knew that negotiations were going on between them and the 
Spaniards. The two significant sentences which are supposed 
to prove Ganganelli's duplicity are these :— To one party he 
said, ' The arms of the Bourbon princes are very long, they 
reach over the Alps and the Pyrenees.' To the other he said 
(M. Cretineau Joly of course adds, 'in tones of perfect 
sincerity'), 'Destroy the Company of Jesus! you might as well 



282 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. 

think of overturning the dome of St. Peter's.' Moreover the 
Cardinal Castelli is reported to have heard Granganelli say on 
one occasion, 4 1 will never vote for Stoppani ; if he were Pope, 
he would oppress the Jesuits.' And we are to suppose that 
Castelli, 6 the chief of the fanatics,' was suddenly converted by 
these words into a partisan of Granganelli. 

III. But after all (and this is the main question), was Gran- 
ganelli a Jesuit in his heart and conscience ; and did he wrench 
that heart from its dominant inclination, and sell that con- 
science for the Papal tiara ? All the proofs on one side are, a 
formal oration which in his younger days he made on some 
commemoration festival, in which he spoke handsomely of the 
learning and depth of some of the great Jesuit writers ; his 
elevation to the Cardinalate by Clement XIII., who was com- 
pletely under the influence of Kicci, general of the Jesuits ; his 
habitual civility to the Jesuits wherever he encountered them ; 
the perplexities of Bernis, which we have already described ; 
and those loose sayings ascribed to him during the conclave. 
These vague proofs are crowned by a passage from a manuscript 
history by the Jesuit Cordara, 4 whose wish,' we may not un- 
reasonably conclude, 'was father to his thought.' But even 
Cordara admits that the world in general considered Granganelli 
opposed to the Jesuits. To these few and trivial facts are 
opposed the character of the man ; his Order, which in many of 
the missions had come into hostile collision with that of Jesus ; 
his reputation, which from the first pointed him out as one of 
those who might be promoted by the anti-Jesuit interest ; 
above all his prospective views, which manifestly had foreseen 
that the old ultramontane government of the world by terror 
alone, by the terror of interdict and anathema, had passed 
away ; that unless Catholicism, unless Christianity could attach 
mankind by the cords of love, its day was gone. These views 
implied the most profound confidence, rather than cowardly 
mistrust, in the promises of Grod to the Church at large, or in 
those special promises which the Roman Catholic believes to 
have been made to St. Peter, and through him to the bishops 



283 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 

of Eome. There was, moreover, one act of G-anganelli— an act 
acknowledged by M. Cretineau Joly, and by all who are hostile 
to the memory of Clement XIV.— which seems to us conclusive 
as to his previous anti-Jesuitism. He it was who had suc- 
ceeded the Cardinal Passionei in conducting the proceedings 
for the canonization of Palafox, bishop of Puebla. But this 
canonization, pertinaciously opposed during many years by the 
whole Jesuit interest, was by all the world considered as a direct 
and positive condemnation of the Order, who were asserted to 
have persecuted that blameless bishop to his dying bed. It was 
to them a question of life and death ; Ganganelli's voluntary 
undertaking of this cause, therefore, was little less than an 
open declaration of war against them. On the whole, then, we 
can have no doubt that Ganganelli was, ab initio, in his heart 
convinced of the justice, the policy, the wisdom of the suppres- 
sion of the Jesuits, though from prudential motives, perhaps 
from the gentleness of his temper, he abstained from betraying 
those views more than was necessary ; and when the time for 
action was come, shuddered and recoiled at the difficult task- 
one which it would have required a far different cast of mind 
to accomplish without fear, without doubt, without regret. 

The end of a Papal election usually throws the population of 
Eome into a state of tumultuous exultation : Clement, on his 
accession, was hailed with a perfect frenzy of joy. This M. 
Cretineau Joly describes, interspersing covert allusions to more 
recent rejoicings on the election of a liberal Pope, and solemn 
and ominous warning of the fickleness of the Roman people, 
and the instability of this kind of popularity. 

Count St. Priest condemns severely the weakness and irreso- 
lution of Clement XIV., who delayed for three years the great 
work of his pontificate. Ganganelli shrunk before the magni- 
tude of his task— the utter extinction of an Order which had 
been approved by so many Popes, had the Council of Trent in 
its favour, and was still considered by friends and foes the 
Janissary force of the Papal power. 'Far,' says the count, 
'from displaying that inflexibility, that unshaken firmness, 



284 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



ascribed to him by his enemies and his panegyrists, he resolved 
to temporize, to amuse the sovereigns by promises, to restrain 
the Jesuits by premeditated hesitations ; in a word, to elude 
rather than brave the danger. From this day he devoted his 
pontificate to all the subterfuges and all the artifices of a 
laborious feebleness.' Our reader will find the history of all 
these transactions told with admirable brevity, spirit, and truth 
in M. St. Priest's fourth chapter. Nothing can be more 
striking than the development of Clement's character — his 
conduct to Bernis — his happiness when for a short time relieved 
from the intolerable burden of immediate decision — his strug- 
gles in the inflexible grasp of Florida Blanca. But M. St. 
Priest has hardly made allowance for the difficulties of 
Clement's position. The sovereigns and their agents were for 
forcing the measure with immediate, indecent haste : Clement 
had stipulated from the first that the affair should proceed 
legally ; he would act slowly, canonically, charitably. Griving 
him credit for having conscientiously determined to keep his 
positive or implied promise, under the full conviction that the 
peace of the Church required the dissolution of the Order, it is 
hardly surprising that he should have been perplexed as to the 
safest and least offensive means of achieving his design. He 
had hardly any one to consult ; his private friends, two good 
simple Franciscans, could give him no assistance in such 
perilous questions. The Cardinals were hostile ; he felt himself 
obliged to withdraw from their councils : the ambassadors, till 
he had made a friend of Bernis, were for driving him on with 
headlong, merciless, cruel precipitancy. His caution may have 
led to more than the proverbial tardiness of proceedings at 
Eome, his irresolution may have been weakness, he may have 
yielded too much to his fears ; according to Bernis, from the 
day of his elevation he had a dread of poison. But the justice 
and gentleness of his character were perhaps more embarrassing 
than his scruples or his timidity. The measure could not be 
accomplished without inflicting much suffering — without 
wounding the most tender and sacred feelings of many who 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 

admired and loved at least individual Jesuits — without con- 
demning many excellent, pious, and devoted men to disgrace, 
degradation, poverty. It was a light thing for despots and 
unscrupulous ministers, who never thought or cared at what 
amount of private and individual misery they carried their 
purposes, to suppress the Jesuits. It was but to issue a decree 
of expulsion, to confiscate their property, and to proscribe 
their persons. It required but administrative ability to seize, 
as in Spain, every member of the Order, to tear them away 
from all their own attachments, and the attachment of others, 
to embark them and cast them contemptuously on the shores 
of Italy. But it was a severe trial for a kindly and benignant 
ecclesiastic to trample all these considerations under foot ; to 
inflict so much individual wrong and sorrow, even for so great 
an end as the adaptation of Christianity to the spirit of the age. 
And, moreover, Clement knew too well, he felt at every step, 
the power of the Jesuits, which in Kome encircled the Pope as 
in an inextricable net. 6 Dans les palais de Rome les Jesuites 
etaient les intendants des maris, les directeurs des femmes ; a 
toutes les tables, dans toutes les conversazioni, regnait clespo- 
tiquement un Jesuite.' (St. Priest, p. 113.) Better motives 
than timidity might make him reluctant rudely to break up 
throughout the civilized world connections which might be as 
intimate, more holy, more truly spiritual than those at Rome. 
Accordingly, we find him casting about for every kind of device 
to break the blow ; he thought at one time of a council to give 
greater solemnity to the decree ; he thought of allowing the 
Order to die out, by prohibiting them from receiving novices ; 
of appointing no successor to the aged Ricci. He ventured to 
offend Charles III. by favourable expressions with regard to 
their missions; he gave them opportunities of parting with 
their property to relieve their present distresses. But he was 
attempting an impossibility— to avoid the blow might have 
baffled a great man, to a good man it was utterly desperate and 
hopeless. At length, after three years' delay, appeared the 
fatal Brief, Dominus et Redemptor. It was a Brief, not a Bull ; 



286 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



but we must plead guilty to that obtuseness or blindness which 
cannot comprehend how Papal Infallibility can depend on its 
decrees being written on paper or on parchment, accompanied 
or not accompanied by certain formularies of publication. 

All that follows the publication of the brief — the death of 
Granganelli, the fierce and yet unexhausted disputes about the 
last year of his life, and the manner of his death — are to us in- 
describably melancholy and repulsive. The two parties are 
contending, as it were, for the body and soul of Pope Clement, 
with a rancour of mutual hatred which might remind us of the 
Spaniards and Mexicans during their great battle on the Lake — 
the Mexicans seizing the dying Spaniards to immolate them to 
their idol — the Spaniards dragging them away to secure them 
the honours and posthumous consolations of Christian burial. 
We have conflicting statements, both of which cannot be true 
— churchman against churchman — cardinal against cardinal — 
even, it should seem, pope against pope. On the one side 
there is a triumph, hardly disguised, in the terrors, in the 
sufferings, in the madness, which afflicted the later days of 
Clement ; on the other, the profoundest honour, the deepest 
commiseration, for a wise and holy pontiff, who, but for the 
crime of his enemies, might have enjoyed a long reign of peace 
and respect and inward satisfaction. There, a protracted agony of 
remorse in life and anticipated damnation — that damnation, if 
not distinctly declared, made dubious or averted only by a special 
miracle : — here, an apotheosis — a claim, at least, to_ canoniza- 
tion. There, the judgement of Grod pronounced in language 
which hardly affects regret ; here, more than insinuations, dark 
charges of poison against persons not named, but therefore in- 
volving in the ignominy of possible guilt a large and powerful 
party. Throughout the history of the Jesuits it is this which 
strikes, perplexes, and appals the dispassionate student. The 
intensity with which they were hated surpasses even the in- 
tensity with which they hated. Nor is this depth of mutual 
animosity among those or towards those to whom the Jesuits 
were most widely opposed, the Protestants, and the adversaries 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 287 

of all religion ; but among Roman Catholics— and those not 
always Jansenists or even Galileans— among the most ardent 
assertors of the Papal supremacy, monastics of other orders, 
parliaments, 2 statesmen, kings, bishops, cardinals. Admiration 
and detestation of the Jesuits divide, as far as feeling is con- 
cerned, the Eoman Catholic world with a schism deeper and 
more implacable than any which arrays Protestant against Pro- 
testant, Episcopacy and Independency, Calvinism and Armini- 
anism, Puseyism and Evangelicism. The two parties counter- 
work each other, write against each other in terms of equal 
acrimony, misunderstand each other, misrepresent each other, 
accuse and recriminate upon each other, with the same reckless 
zeal, in the same unmeasured language— each inflexibly, ex- 
clusively identifying his own cause with that of true religion, 
and involving its adversaries in one sweeping and remorseless 
condemnation. 3 

2 See Cretineau Joly, p. 151, for the accusations adopted by the Parliament of 
Paris, which only comprehend simony, blasphemy, sacrilege, magic, idolatry, astro- 
logy irreligion of all kinds, superstition, unchastity, perjury, false witness, pre- 
varication, theft, parricide, homicide, suicide, regicide. The charges against the 
doctrines of the Jesuits are equally enormous : they had taught every heresy, from 
Arianism to Calvinism (all carefully recounted), blasphemies against the Fathers, 
the Apostles, Abraham and the Prophets, St. John the Baptist and the Angels, out- 
rages and blasphemies against the Blessed Virgin, tenets destructive of the divinity 
of Jesus Christ, deistical, Epicurean, teaching men to live as beasts, and Christians 

to live as Pagans ! ... 

3 Even now a writer, in some respects -in copiousness, in eloquence, m vigour, m 
extensive knowledge— the most remarkable of modern Italy, Vincenzio Gioberti, 
seems to have concentrated within himself all the traditionary hatred of the Jesuits, 
and fixed on himself their no less vindictive detestation. His huge volume, the 
Primato d' Italia, soon came to be a text-book with a large part of the Italian clergy, 
especially in Piedmont. The theory of the Primato is to us simply preposterous 
The eternal, the inalienable, the unforfeitable primacy of Italy, of Pome, and of 
the Pope is as wild a vision as ever haunted the poet, or him whom m imaginative 
creativeness Shakespeare ranks with the poet, the lunatic. This indefeasible primacy 
we will begin to discuss when Italy shall have given birth to new Dantes, new 
Ariostos, new Tassos, new Da Vincis, new Michael Angelos, new Raffaelles, new 
Galileos— with greater Watts, more ingenious Pultons, more inventive Vvheatstones 
But even the Primato, with all its eloquent appeal to the patriotic and ecclesiastical 
passions of Italy, was looked upon with mistrust so long as there were suspicions 
that Gioberti inclined to the Jesuit party. In another vast volume of Prolegomem 
Gioberti not merelv disclaimed all such alliance, but began a fierce war against the 
Jesuits This gauntlet was taken up ; he was replied to with bitter and unspa- 
ring and, as far as we are informed, unjust, personality. The Gesuita Moderno, m 



288 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



To us the question of the death of Clement XIV. is purely 
of historical interest. It is singular enough that Protestant 
writers are cited as alone doing impartial justice to the Jesuits 
and their enemies : the Compurgators of the 4 Company of 
Jesus ' are Frederick II. and the Encyclopedists. Outcast from 
Eoman Catholic Europe, they found refuge in Prussia, and in 
the dominions of Catherine II., from whence they disputed the 
validity and disobeyed the decrees of the Pope. Moreover, to 
us the beauty of Clement's character depends by no means on 
his conduct in the affair of the Jesuits, but on his piety, his 
gentleness, his universal benevolence, his toleration. We care 
not much for his greatness ; but we have a tender, almost an 
affectionate, regard for his goodness. We cannot forget that, 
if he hesitated to suppress the Jesuits, he was bold enough to 
prohibit, immediately on his accession, the publication of 
the famous bull, In Coend Domini ; he was the first so-called 
Vicar of Christ, for a century or two, that did not commence 
his reign by maledictions on all but one particular division 
of those professing the faith of Christ — the first — (and last?) 
— whose inaugural edict was not an anathema. 

M. Cretineau Joly informs us that the Pope signed the 
terrible brief with a pencil on a window in the Quirinal, and 
adds : — ' It is reported (on raconte), and I have this narrative 
from the lips of Pope Gregory XVI., that after having ratified 
this act, he fell in a swoon upon the marble pavement, and was 
not taken up till the next day (" et qu'il ne fut releve que le 
lendemain ").' Does M. Cretineau, or did Gregory XVI. mean 
that he was so utterly neglected by his attendants as to have 
been left on the floor ? or that he did not recover his senses, 
for the whole day ? We presume that the relation of the late 
Pope closed here, M. Cretineau proceeds : — 

five thick volumes, is Grioberti's pamphlet in rejoinder — a work which we could 
only have commended a few months ago to those who were anxious to measure 
the extent of modern Italian prolixity, and gauge the depths of modern odium theo- 
logicum, but which has now acquired other claims to attention ; for there is no 
doubt of its having had great influence on the late general pronunciamento against 
the Jesuits in Italy. 



Essay V.] 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



289 



Le lendemain fut pour lui un jour de desespoir et de larmes, car, 
suivant la relation manuscrite, qu'a laissee le celebre theologien Vin- 
cent Bolgeni, le Cardinal de Simone (alors auditeur du Pape) racon- 
tait ainsi lui-meme cette affreuse scene. Le Pontife etait presque nu 
sur son lit ; il se lamentait, et de temps k autre on l'entendait repeter, 
' O Dieu, je suis damne ! l'enfer est ma demeure. II n'y a plus de 
remede.' Fra Francesco, ainsi s'exprime Simone, me pria de m'ap- 
procher du Pape, et de lui adresser la parole. Je le fis; mais le 
Pape ne me repondit point, et il disait toujours, 1 L'enfer est ma 
demeure ! ' Je cherchai a le rassurer ; mais il se taisait. Un quart 
d'heure s'ecoula ; enfin il tourna ses yeux vers moi, et me dit, i Ah ! 
j'ai signe le bref; il n'y a plus de remede.' Je lui repliquai qu'il 
en existait encore un, et qu'il pouvait retirer le decret. ' Cela ne se 
peut plus,' s'ecria-t-il, 1 je l'ai remis k Monino, et a l'heure qu'il est, le 
courrier qui le porte en Espagne est peut-etre deja parti.' 1 Eh Lien ! 
Saint Pere,' lui dis-je, 'un bref se revoque par un autre bref.' ' Dieu,' 
reprit-il, 'cela ne se peut pas. Je suis damne. Ma maison est un 
enfer; il n'y a plus de remede.' — P. 331. 

The Pope's misjudging friends, adds our author, would 
deprive him of the virtue of remorse. That remorse preyed 
upon him incessantly, as we are left to infer, from July 21, 
1773, to the day of his death. Cardinal de Bernis is quoted as 
revealing his fears of dying by poison, which had haunted him 
ever since his accession. He became mad ; he had only glimpses 
of reason (' des eclairs de raison ') ; the first and last Pope, 
asserts M. Cretineau, who has suffered that degradation of 
humanity. The stern historian will waste no word of com- 
miseration. 

But all this is in direct contradiction with De Bernis' ex- 
press, distinct, and particular statements quoted by M. St. 
Priest, and adduced in a more convenient place by our author. 
6 Sa sante est parfaite et sa gaiteplus marquee qu'a l'ordinaire :' 
thus writes the French cardinal on November 3, 1773. Bernis 
is, on all points where his own vanity and display of influ- 
ence are not concerned, an unexceptional witness. He was 
living in the most friendly intercourse with the Pope. And 
his story is confirmed by anecdotes— some cited by M. Cretineau 
himself, others by St. Priest and many other writers. The 
date of Clement's first illness is marked with absolute precision. 

u 



290 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



About the Holy Week, 1774, the Pope (who up to that time 
had shown himself in public in the streets and in the churches 
in apparent health and vigour) suddenly shut himself up in his 
palace — even the ministers of the Foreign powers were not 
permitted to approach him. It was not till August 17 that 
they were admitted to an audience. They were struck with 
his altered appearance — he was shrunk to a skeleton. He spoke 
cheerfully of his health ; but every one saw that it was an 
effort. The account which transpired was that one day, as he 
rose from table, he was seized with violent internal pains and 
cold shiverings. He recovered ; but soon after alarming symp- 
toms appeared, not merely in the body, but in the mind also. He 
became wayward, peevish, mistrustful. Daggers and poisoned 
phials were ever before him. He ate exciting food, which he 
dressed with his own hands. His mind wandered : he could not 
sleep ; if he did, his sleep was broken with wild visions : he 
constantly prostrated himself before an image of the Virgin, 
and there lay sobbing, s Mercy ! mercy ! — compulsus feci ! com- 
pulsus feci ! ' 

After six months of these horrible sufferings his faculties 
and his reason entirely returned. In the words of Cardinal de 
Bernis, cited by Count St. Priest, 4 the Vicar of Jesus Christ 
prayed, as his Redeemer did, for his implacable enemies ; and 
at this moment, so great was his delicacy of conscience, that 
he scarcely allowed the suspicions, which had haunted him 
since the Holy Week, to escape from his lips. He died on 
September 22. His body was in the most loathsome state — a 
state which we shrink from describing. An examination, how- 
ever, did take place ; the result of which by no means removed 
the dark suspicions which spread abroad.' 

The statements of Cardinal Bernis are confirmed in every 
point and every particular by another contemporary account — 
the 'Relation of the Sickness and Death of Clement XIV.' sent to 
the court of Madrid by the Spanish ambassador. This relation 
was printed in the 4 Storia della Vita, etc., di Clemente XIV.' 
(Firenze, 1778.) It was reprinted from another copy, found 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 291 

among the papers of Kicci, Bishop of Pistoia, in the life of that 
prelate by De Potter, i. p. 236-256. This account is full, 
minute, and circumstantial : it describes every symptom, every 
change, the whole medical history of the case— the hour (here 
we request our readers to fix their attention, for reasons which 
will hereafter appear) at which the dying pontiff partook of 
the Holy Sacrament, and that at which he received extreme 
unction— (the persons who officiated at this ceremony were well 
known ; at least there was nothing strange or unusual, and the 
Pope was faithfully waited upon by his usual attendants and 
friends). The post-mortem examination is afterwards given 
with the utmost precision. In short, as far as internal evidence 
goes, we know nothing which can appear more trustworthy than 
this document— a document likely to be forwarded to the court 
of Madrid by the ambassador, and that ambassador in a position 
to command the most accurate information. 

Our own disposition is towards severe mistrust in all such 
crimes as the poisoning of great people. We decline, therefore, 
to express any positive opinion on this historical problem. It 
is clear that Cardinal Bernis, who had carefully collected all 
the circumstances connected with the last illness of the Pope 
(a document unfortunately lost), believed in the poison. ' The 
physicians,' he says, ' who assisted at the opening of the body, 
express themselves with prudence— the surgeons with less 
caution.' According to Cardinal Bernis, the successor of 
Clement, Pius VI., led him to believe that he was well informed 
as to the death of his predecessor, and was anxious to avoid 
the same fate. Bernis adhered to his opinion to the last ; so 
asserts M. St. Priest ; the authority adduced by M. Cretineau 
Joly for his change of opinion seems to us utterly worthless. 
M. St. Priest expresses his own strong conviction of the poison- 
ing, attested, as he says, ' by the Pope's successor himself, in a 
grave conversation with a prince of the Church.' 

M. Cretineau Joly, of course, treats the story of the poison 
with contempt ; one of his arguments appears to us singularly 
unfortunate. It is, in plain English, that the Jesuits could not 

v 2 



292 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



have poisoned Clement XIV. after his accession, because they 
did not before. Then it would have been to their advantage : 
now it was too late, and of no use. It is a strange defence of 
the Order, that they would not perpetrate an unprofitable crime. 
But is not revenge a motive as strong as hatred, even with 
fanatics ? Moreover, till the actual publication of the brief, 
the Jesuits might and did entertain hopes of averting their 
doom, through the fears or irresolution of the Pope. On the 
other hand, we cannot think the prophecies of the speedy death 
of the Pope, which were industriously disseminated among the 
people, by any means of the weight which is usually ascribed to 
them, as against the Jesuits. A peasant girl of Valentano, named 
Bernardina Eenzi, who signified by certain mysterious letters, 
P.S.S.V., Presto Sara Sede Vacante, was visited, it is said, by 
many Jesuits, and even by Eicci, the General of the Order — of 
which latter fact we should have great doubts. But, granting 
that all these prophecies were actively propagated, encouraged, 
suggested by the Jesuits, it would only follow that they were 
pleasing and acceptable to their ears ; they might have vague 
hopes of frightening Clement to death ; at all events, to all 
who believed that they were of divine revelation, it showed that 
Grod was for the Jesuits and against the Pope. But if they 
or any party of fanatics among them, entertained the design of 
making away with the Pope, it was not very consistent with 
Jesuit wisdom to give this public warning to the Pope and his 
friends — to commit themselves by frauds which would rather 
counteract than further their purpose. Crime of this kind is 
secret and noiseless ; it does not sound a note of preparation ; 
the utmost that can be said is, that these prophecies may have 
worked on the morbid and excited brain of some of the more 
fanatical, and prompted a crime thus, as it might seem to them, 
predestined by heaven. 

M. Cretineau Joly dwells on the disdain with which Frederick 
II. treated the story of the poisoning. We are not aware that 
his Prussian majesty possessed any peculiar means for ascertain- 
ing the truth, except from the Jesuits whom he had taken under 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 293 

his especial patronage, thinking that he could employ them for 
his own purposes. The judgement of many Protestant writers, 
somewhat ostentatiously adduced, may prove their liberality ; 
but the authority of each must depend on the information at 
his command. The report of the physicians would be conclusive 
if we knew more about their character and bias ; and if Bernis 
had not asserted that the surgeons held a different language. On 
the physiology of the case we profess our ignorance— how far 
there are slow poisons which, imbibed into the constitution, do 
their work by degrees and during a long period of time. There 
is certainly no necessity for the < daemon ex machina,' the 
Jesuit with his cup of chocolate, 4 to account for the death of 
Clement, if it be true (and there is no improbability in the 
case) that he was of a bad constitution, aggravated by improper 
diet and self-treatment, 5 and by those worst of maladies in certain 
diseases of the body, incessant mental agitation, daily dread of 
death, and horrors which, darkening into superstition, clouded 
for a time his reason. What we know of the state of the body 
after death might perhaps be ascribed to a natural death under 
such circumstances, as well as to poison. 

But we have not done with the deathbed of Pope GanganeUi. 
We have alluded to the beautiful incident related by Cardinal 
Bernis, that, just before his dissolution, his full faculties re- 
turned, and that his dying words, like those of his Master's first 
martyr, of his Master himself, were of forgiveness to his 
enemies. 6 With this prayer we should have left the Pope in 

4 M Cretineau Joly has great respect for the traditions of the higher, the priestly 
circles' at Borne : the popular traditions are the other way. When the present Pope 
visited one of the Jesuit establishments, the mob cried out, 'Take care oi the 

chocolate ^ ^ ^ in & voluminous Dictionary of Ecclesiastical History, 
by Gaetano Moroni (a work the publication of which was commenced under the 
auspices of the late Pope, Gregory XVI.), among other arguments to discredit the 
poisoning, it is alleged that a celebrated Elorentine surgeon, Nannoni, being in 
Rome was consulted by the Pope. Nannoni told him that his malady was <un 
affezione scorbutica universale, troppo avanzata nel sangue;' that proper care and 
diet might alleviate but could not cure, the disorder.-^. Clement XI K 

6 The Spanish document is here more brief: ■ In mezzo agli atti di contrive e 
pieta veramente esemplare rese 1' anima al suo Creatore, verso 1' ora 1 3, &C.-P. 44b, 



294 



CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 



[Essay V. 



humble hope to the mercies of Him to whom all judgement is 
committed by the Father. 

But this is not enough : a Pope, even though guilty of sup- 
pressing the Jesuits, must have a secure and certain absolu- 
tion. In the extract which we are about to make we assure our 
readers that we invite their attention to no scrap from a 
monkish chronicle of the Middle Ages, no fragment of hagio- 
graphy disinterred from any of the Greek menologies, or from 
the G-olden Legend, but a grave statement offered to us in the 
nineteenth century as an historical fact, and guaranteed by a 
solemn decision of the Papal See : — 

In his last moments his understanding was fully restored. The 
Cardinal Malvezzi, the evil angel of the pontiff, was attending him at 
the hour of death. God did not permit the successor of the Apostles to 
expire unreconciled with Heaven. To snatch away the soul of the Pope 
from hell, which, according to his own words, had become his dwelling, 
and in order that the grave might not close without hope on him who 
ceased not to repeat, i O Dio ! sono dannato,' a miracle was necessary 
— a miracle was wrought. Saint Alphonso de Liguori was then Bishop 
of Santa Agata dei Goti, in the kingdom of Naples. Providence, which 
was jealous rather for the honour of the supreme pontificate than for 
the salvation of a Christian compromised by a great fault, designated 
Alphonso de Liguori as his intermediator between Heaven and Gan- 
ganelli. In the process for the canonization of that saint we read in 
what manner the prodigy was accomplished : — 1 The venerable servant 
of God, living at Arienzo, a small town in his diocese (it was on Sep- 
tember 21, 1774), had a kind of fainting fit. Seated on his couch, he 
remained two days in a sweet and profound sleep. One of his attendants 
wished to wake him. His vicar-general, Don John Nicholas de Iiubino, 
ordered them to let him rest, but not to lose sight of him. When he 
at length awoke, he immediately rung his bell, and his servants hastened 
towards him. Seeing them much astonished, " What is this ? " he said ; 
" what is the matter ?" " What is the matter ! " they replied ; " why, 
for two days you have neither spoken nor eaten, nor given any sign of 
life." " You indeed," said the servant of God, " thought that I was 
asleep ; but it was no such thing : you do not know that I have been 
away to minister to the Pope, who is now dead ! " Before long, infor- 
mation arrived that Clement XIV. had died at thirteen o'clock (between 
eight and nine in the morning)— that is to say, at the precise moment 
when the servant of God rang his bell.' 

Such is the statement which Rome, so difficult in the affair of miracles, 



Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 295 

and which does not avouch them till after mature examination has 
guaranteed in the Acts of Canonization of Alphonso di Liguon? Borne 
has discussed; Home has pronounced: this bilocation— {this being m 
two places at the same time]— is an historic fact! /'—P. 375. 

And M. Cretineau Joly is not content to leave this story in 
privileged obscurity in the acts of canonization. Verily, we 
comprehend at length the solicitude of the Cardinals, the tears 
of the General of the Jesuits, the desire of the Pope for the 
suppression of M. Cretineau Joly's book. 

» « Informatio, animadyersiones et responsio super virtutibus V S I). Alphonsi 
Mari* di Ligorio' (Kome, 1806). These acts we have not seen. We take them as 
.noted by ol author. In Morone's Dictionary we read 

beatified in 1816 and canonized in 1839 ; but he died m 1786 and the taking of 
evidence about his claims had, of course, been begun early-and the decision on the 
various miracles recorded from time to time by the ^ a ** OTtaM l^ n ^ 
the rules which our readers may consult in the first three volumes of the Opera 
Omnia ' of Pope Benedict XIV., edition the Hth-for no less than three of those 
folios are occupied with his grand treatise, Be BeatificaUone Servorum Da et 
Canonizatione Beatorum. 



296 



VI. 

NEWMAN ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF 
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.' 

(March, 1846.) 

All the world knows that, before the publication of this work, 
Mr. Newman had passed over to the Church of Eome. May 
his restless spirit at length have repose !— the doubts, which 
still tremblingly betray themselves in his most positive conclu- 
sions, cease to haunt his mind !— his deep religious yearnings 
find satisfaction in those cloistral practices or observances, it 
should seem, absolutely indispensable to his peculiar tempera- 
ment, but unnecessary to those Christians who are content with 
the higher mission of perseveringly discharging their duty to 
God and man, whether in the high places or the domestic sanc- 
tuaries of life ! We write with no proud and unbecoming 
assumption of compassion towards one who, we think, has mis & - 
taken the lower for the higher view of Christian faith and love ; 
but it is our solemn prayer and hope that he may escape all 
the anguish of self-reproach, and the reproach of others— self- 
reproach for having sown the bitter seeds of religious dissension 
in many families ;— the reproach of others who, more or less 
blindly following his example, have snapt asunder the bonds 
of hereditary faith and domestic attachment, and have trodden 
under foot the holiest charities of our being ; who have aban- 
doned their prospects in life, many of them— from their talents 
and serious character— prospects of most extensive usefulness 
to mankind ; and who may hereafter find, when the first burst 

1 An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, By John Henry Newman 
870. London, 1845. 



Essay VI.] NEWMAN ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 297 

of poetry and of religious passion has softened down, that the 
void was not in the religion of their fathers but in themselves ; 
that they have sought to find without, what they should have 
sought within ; and will have to strive for the rest of their 
lives with baffled hopes, with ill-suppressed regrets ; with an 
uneasy consciousness of their unfitness for their present position, 
and want of power or courage to regain that which they have 
lost ; with a hollow truce instead of a firm peace within their 
conscience ; a weary longing for rest where rest alone can be 
found. 

Our business is with Mr. Newman's book, not with Mr. New- 
man himself or with his followers. It will, however, be impos- 
sible altogether to separate the examination of his work from 
what Mr. Coleridge would have called the psychological study 
of his mind — so completely is the one the reflection, dare we 
use the word, the transfiguration of one into the other. Yet 
this consideration, while we scruple not strongly to assert our 
own convictions of the truth, is but a more grave admonition to 
labour at least to maintain throughout the discussion the most 
perfect candour and charity. 

There is something significant in a few words of Mr. New- 
man's preface. The author's 'first act on his conversion was 
to offer his work for revision to the proper authorities ; but the 
offer was declined, on the ground that it was written and partly 
printed before he was a Catholic, and that it would come before 
the reader in a more persuasive form if he read it as the author 
wrote it.' His Church has not departed from her wonted wari- 
ness in declining the responsibility of a work, which might 
thus have appeared, in some degree, as an authorized vindication 
of herself. It may be well, according to her policy, to give 
free scope to bold and original minds ; to men of undoubted, 
though we think of very unequal ability, such as De Maistre, 
Mohler, and Mr. Newman, to promulgate brilliant theories, 
and to work them out with their utmost skill ; the first, M. de 
Maistre, with all the dauntless hardihood of assertion, the reck- 
lessness of quotation, much of the point and brilliancy of 



298 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



French polemics, but utterly wanting in the logical accuracy, 
the profound but perspicuous philosophy of their higher school ; 
the second, with solid Grerman erudition, and by no means 
without Grerman candour and moderation ; 2 the third, Mr. 
Newman, with the logical subtlety of a schoolman, and a style 
unusually clear, vigorous, and idiomatic, though often careless 
in the construction of the sentences, and wanting some of the 
graces of our best prose. On this cautious plan his Church 
gathers all the glory and the profit, and is answerable for 
nothing. If the new Apologists venture to desert the old 
grounds of controversy, it is at their own peril ; the Church 
may disclaim them at the first signal of difficulty or distress ; 
she may cut them adrift and sail proudly on unconcerned at 
their fate, and leaving them to combat alone with the storm 
which they have raised. The wisdom of this reserve is more 

2 We have the satisfaction to find our judgement on these two writers supported 
by the high authority of the Bishop of St. David's. 'Mohler is solidly learned, 
thoughtful, logical, and apparently willing to do justice to his opponents. At least 
he is not in the habit of substituting peremptory and paradoxical assertions or sneers 
in the room of argument ; nor capable (like De Maistre in his work Du Pape) of 
grounding his reasoning on a total misconception of the point in dispute.' — Charge, 
1845. The bishop's observations on the development theory are worth reading, 
as comprehending the whole subject in a few sentences. As a specimen of De 
Maistre's quotations, it may not be unamusing to refer to his testimonies from 
Protestant writers to the supremacy of the Pope. One is from Calvin ! The 
reference in our edition is to the Institutes, book vi. 11. There are only four books 
of the Institutes, and we therefore cannot trace the passage. But we recommend 
the reader to the 6th and 11th chapter of the fourth book for Calvin's opinion on 
this subject. Another testimony is that the old Puritan Cartwright, in his contro- 
versy with Whitgift, said something like this, ' If we are to have such an Archbishop 
of Canterbury, we might as well have a Pope ! ' Some sentences of Misson and of 
Gibbon, which justly assert that the Popes of their own century had usually been 
men of decent, irreproachable, even venerable character, have become testimonies 
to the blamelessness and to the virtues of all the Popes who ever sate in St. Peter's 
chair. But have those who quote De Maistre and Mohler together, as Mr. Newman 
does, read both ? Mohler' s book (Die Einheit in der Kirche) confines itself to the 
three first centuries, and his conclusion is this — that the Papal supremacy was un- 
known in the more flourishing state of the Church ; that it was a provision for 
darker times ; and that if we could revive that flourishing state we should return 
to primitive Episcopacy :— 4 Je bliihender der Zustand der Kirche, desto mehr wird 
sich der friiheste Verband der Kirche durch den Episcopat darstellen, und die 
andern werden in den Hintergrund zuriicktreten, die Metropoliten und der Primas.' 
.. . . Afterwards he says — ' Haben wir das alte Leben wieder, so werden wir die 
alten Formen nothwendig wieder erhalten.' — Pp. 248, 250. 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 299 

evident, since the whole battle depends, according to the new 
theory, on one dangerous position. The adversary is admitted 
within the lines, within the camp, to be beaten back only by 
the strength of one forlorn post. 

The Introduction to Mr. Newman's book might of itself 
alarm any one deeply read in the controversies of but recent 
times. It is the preliminary hazard to the great desperate 
stake which is to be played by the whole book, and, as he 
himself knows, has already been tried with serious consequences 
not only to the Church of Rome, but to Christianity itself. Its 
substance is this : That there are no better grounds in the 
Scriptures and in the earlier Fathers for some of those doc- 
trines which are most universally received by the great mass 
of Christian believers beyond as well as within the pale of 
Eome, than for the more peculiar doctrines of that Church ; 
that the testimonies are equally vague, dim, precarious, ambi- 
guous, and contradictory, for the Trinity and the Inspiration 
and Authority of the Scriptures, as for the worship of the 
Virgin Mary and for the supremacy of the Pope. Original Sin 
and Purgatory stand and fall together. 

The singular point throughout the Introduction is this :— Mr. 
Newman feels himself obliged to confine his arguments to the 
refutation of himself and of his former friends. To the latter 
he endeavours to prove most elaborately that their doctrine of 
the Eeal Presence (not Transubstantiation) which they have 
maintained on the ground of the memorable canon of Vincen- 
tius Lirinensis, ' Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus,' 
stands on no better ground than the Papal Supremacy. We 
leave these learned writers to defend themselves, but Mr. New- 
man, as he ingenuously acknowledges, has also to confute him- 
self. In the year 1838 Mr. Newman wrote thus of Bishop 
Bull's 'Defence of the Nicene Faith': 

He was led to do so by an attack upon the orthodoxy of the ante- 
Nicene Fathers from a quarter whence it was at first sight little to be 
expected. The learned assailant was not an Arian, or Socinian, or 
Latitudinarian, but Petavius, a member of the Jesuit body. The ten- 



300 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



dency of the portion of his great work on theological doctrines which 
treats of the Trinity is too plain to be mistaken. The historian Gibbon 
does not scruple to pronounce that its 1 object, or at least effect,' was 
1 to arraign ' and, as he considers, ' successfully, the faith of the ante- 
Nicene Fathers ;' and it was used in no long time by Arian writers in 
their own justification. Thus Romanist, heretic, and infidel unite with 
one another in this instance in denying the orthodoxy of the first cen- 
turies But to return to Petavius. This learned author, in his 

elaborate work on the Trinity, shows that he would rather prove the 
early Confessors and Martyrs to be heterodox than that they should 
exist as a court of appeal from the decisions of his own Church ; and 
he accordingly sacrifices, without remorse, Justin, Clement, IrenaBus, and 
their brethren to the maintenance of the infallibility of Rome. Or to 
put the matter in another point of view, truer perhaps though less 
favourable still to Petavius, he consents that the Catholic doctrine of 
the Holy Trinity shall so far rest on the mere declaration of the Church 
that, before it was formally defined, there was no heresy in rejecting it, 
provided he can thereby gain for Rome the freedom of making decrees 
unfettered by the recorded judgements of antiquity. — Lectures on the 
Prophetical Office of the Church, 1838, p. 73 et seq. 

I do not mean to say that there have been many such systematic and 
profound attempts as this on the part of Petavius, at what may justly 
be called parricide. Rome even, steeled as she is against the kindlier 
feelivgs when her interests require, has more of tender mercy left than to 
bear them often. — Ibid. pp. 77, 78. 

We implicitly believe that Mr. Newman believes the sincerity 
of his own protestations of the most profound reverence for the 
primitive Fathers, and that he has not the slightest intention 
to impugn their orthodoxy ; he would suppose that those 
Fathers in their most ambiguous expressions 4 imply or intend 
the Catholic doctrine.' Yet he now writes thus. After stating 
that 4 the only great doctrinal council in ante-Mcene times 
rejected the word Homoiisian,' he proceeds : — - 

The six great bishops and saints of the ante-Nicene Church were 
St. Irenajus, St. Hippolytus, St. Cyprian, St. Gregory Thaumatur- 
gus, St. Dionysius of Alexandria, and St. Methodius. Of these St. 
Dionysius is accused by St. Basil of having sown the first seeds of Arian- 
ism ; and St. Gregory is allowed by the same learned father to have 
used language concerning our Lord, which he only defends on the plea 
of an economical object in the writer. St. Hippolytus speaks as if he 
were ignorant of our Lord's Eternal Sonship; St. Methodius speaks in- 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 301 

correctly at least upon the Incarnation ; and St. Cyprian does not treat 
of theology at all. Such is the incompleteness of the extant teaching 
of these true saints, and, in their day, faithful witnesses of the Eternal 

S °Again; Athenagoras, St. Clement, Tertullian, and the two SS. Dio- 
nysii would appear to be the only writers whose language is at any time 
exact and systematic enough to remind us of the Athanasian Creed. If 
we limit our views of the teaching of the Fathers by what they ex- 
pressly state, St. Ignatius may be considered as a Patripassian, St. Justin 
Arianizes, and St. Hippolytus is a Photinian. 

Again ; there are three great doctrinal writers of the ante-Nicene 
centuries,' Tertullian, Origen, and, we may add, Eusebius, though he 
lived some way into the fourth. Tertullian is heterodox on the doctrine 
of our Lord's divinity, and, indeed, ultimately fell altogether into heresy 
or schism ; Origen is, at the very least, suspected, and must be defended 
and explained rather than cited as a witness of orthodoxy ; and Euse- 
bius was an Arian.' — Pp. 13, 14. 

The doctrine of the Trinity, we suspect, was more rudely 
shaken in the minds of men by the defence of the learned 
Jesuit than by all the high moral reasonings of the Socini. 
Mr. Newman will be in a singular position, if, as no doubt they 
will, the modern Unitarians seize the weapons which he has 
so generously placed in their hands ; and if some Protestant 
Bishop Bull shall again arise in defence of the Nicene faith, 
and at least deserve if not receive the thanks of the Galilean 
Church, through some Bossuet, if Bossuet there be in these de- 
generate days (alas! where is he?), for rescuing the cardinal 
doctrine of Christianity from the incautious, in our case Mr. 
Newman might have written parricidal, zeal of their new and 
boasted proselyte. 

This case of Petavius is familiar to all who are even super- 
ficially read in the divinity of the seventeenth century. But 
there is another remarkable parallel fact, which has by no 
means excited the same attention. Who is the parent of that 
critical study of the canon, and of the authenticity of the 
Scriptures, which has developed itself into the extreme 
rationalism of Paulus, and the anatomical biblical dissections 
of Strauss and his followers ? We are not among those, whose 



302 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



timid — we had almost written dastardly — faith, trembles or 
looks with jealous suspicion at these inquiries — they were 
unavoidable. Faithful and conscientious biblical criticism 
could not elude them. We have the most entire conviction 
that the historic veracity and the authority of the New Testa- 
ment will come forth from the ordeal only more firmly estab- 
lished. In Grermany the triumphant reaction has begun, not 
merely in the Pietistic or Evangelic school, with Hengstenburg 
and his followers, but with men of far more profound and 
dispassionate thought and higher erudition. But in the name 
of those who from the abuse, unwisely as we think, deprecate 
the legitimate use of these investigations — in the name of Mr. 
Newman's former associates and of his present friends— we may 
inquire who was the parent of this, at least incipient, 
Rationalism ? Was it the physician Astruc ? Was it Eichhorn 
or Michaelis? Was it a Protestant divine, or a German 
professor ? The first, and certainly one of the very ablest, 
who entered boldly on this ground, was Father Simon of the 
Oratory. The History of the Old and New Testament by this 
very learned man forms an epoch in biblical study. Its object 
might seem, and its effect certainly was, to assail and disturb 
the security of the whole canon of the New as well as of the 
Old Testament. Father Simon declared that he did this only 
with the view of asserting the authority of the Church. No- 
thing less than the infallibility of the Church could invest such 
doubtful records with their plenary supremacy over the faith. 3 
We write not in hostility to P. Simon, for whom we have great 
respect ; but if this biblical exegesis be so monstrous a birth, 

3 P. Simon says, for example, 'Bien loin done qu'on doive croire, avec les Pro- 
testans, que la voye la plus courte, la plus naturelle, etla pluscertaine pour decider 
ces questions de la Foi, est de consulter l'Ecriture Sainte, on trouvera au contraire 
dans cet ouvrage, que si on separe la regie de droit de eelle de fait, e'est a dire si 
on ne joint la Tradition avec l'Ecriture, on ne <peut presque Hen assurer de certain 
dans la religion' (Preface). Yet we are charitably inclined, with M. le Normant 
(Cours d'Histoire ancienne, p. 126), to think that Simon wrote in the pure interests 
of science; that this was an after-thought, when his book became the subject of 
attack. We may add that Simon quotes several Jesuit writers who had preceded 
him in this course of inquiry. 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHKISTIAN DOCTRINE. 303 



and in her turn the mother of such a fearful brood, of Neologism 
and Eationalism, let all who have any concern in the parentage 
equally share the blame. It is remarkable that the eagle eye 
of Bossuet discerned this danger as it did the other. The 
same eloquence which had assumed the dignified language of 
praise to Bishop Bull, took its sterner tone of condemnation 
towards Father Simon. He prevented the publication of the 
work in France, which only found its way to light through the 
free press of Holland. 

Mr. Newman, as, notwithstanding his own warning he has 
revived the arguments of Petavius, so he has not feared to tread 
in the steps of the Father of the Oratory. He is even more 
prodigal in his concession. Not content with the Trinity, he 
fairly throws over the authenticity of the New Testament. 
4 On what ground (he asks) do we receive the Canon as it comes 
to us, but on the authority of the Church of the fourth and 
fifth centuries ? ' This is the inference from certain passages 
adopted by him from the 'Tracts for the Times,' in which more 
loose doubts are thrown upon the authenticity of several books 
of the New Testament, than would load some unfortunate men 
for life with the ill-omened name of Eationalists. We give one 
paragraph : — 

The New Testament consists of twenty-seven books in all, though of 
varying importance. Of these, fourteen are not mentioned at all till 
from eighty to one hundred years after St. John's death, in which 
number are the Acts, the Second to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the 
Colossians, the Two to the Thessalonians, and St. James. Of the other 
thirteen, five, viz. St. John's Gospel, the Philippians, the First of 
Timothy, the Hebrews, and the First of St. John, are quoted but by one 
writer during the same period. 4 — P. 160. 

We must enter our passing but solemn protest against thus 
confounding the historical evidence, both external and internal, 

4 This writer is not even correct in his assertions. We presume that the line of 
eighty or a hundred years after the death of St. John is drawn to exclude Irenseus. 
But St. John's Gospel is quoted by Justin Martyr, A.c. 140, Jpol. il 1, 14; and 
Dial, c. Tryph.: and by Theophilus of Antioch, a.d. 169, ad Autolyc. iii. 22; and 
what other authentic writers are there within that period from whom we could ex- 
pect much support ? 



304 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



on which we ground the authenticity of the sacred books, with 
these late decrees of the Church. Simon was far too solidly 
learned to rest the Canon of Scripture on the Fathers of the 
fourth or fifth century. This statement is a complete misap- 
prehension or misrepresentation of the whole question. It is 
not whether two or three books (mostly brief and unimportant 
ones, the shorter Epistles) are known to have been less generally 
received than others, but whether the great body of the New 
Testament was the recognized authority throughout Christen- 
dom. One argument alone may almost suffice. Look into 
the works of the earliest of the Fathers, who enter into anything 
like a regular discussion on any question of doctrine or practice. 
Open the treatise of Tertullian (probably within the second 
century) 6 De Eesurrectione Carnis.' The appeal is throughout 
to the books of Scripture, such as we now read them, as of 
established, uncontested authority. There is not a single 
passage in the whole New Testament that can be brought to 
bear on the subject (and some that have but a remote connec- 
tion with it are forced into the service), which is not adduced, 
cited at length, examined, and discussed with as much confidence 
in its authenticity, and as much deference to its authority, 
as by any theological Faculty or Protestant University in our 
own day. So completely, indeed, is the whole an historical 
question, that it is the age alone, not the religious creed of the 
writer, which gives weight to the testimony. It is indifferent 
whether this treatise was written by Tertullian the orthodox or 
Tertullian the Montanist. An American Unitarian, Professor 
Norton, has devoted a whole volume, full of ingenious reasoning 
and solid learning, to show that the Gnostic sects of the second 
century admitted in general the same sacred books with the 
orthodox Christians. 5 However doubtful may be his complete 
success, he has made out a strong case, which, as far as it goes, 

5 Professor Norton makes no concealment of certain peculiar opinions concerning 
the Old Testament. But his peculiar opinions on the Godhead could be detected 
only by the acute sagacity of theological jealousy. His work on the Genuineness 
of the Scriptures is of a high intellectual order. 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 



305 



is one of the most valuable confutations of the extreme Grerman 
Xwpi&vTss, an excellent subsidiary contribution to the proof of 
the 6 genuineness of the Scripture.' If by any strange accident, 
some Palimpsest or Syrian manuscript were to reveal to us 
some passage of an early Gnostic, or even of a better informed 
heathen, which should report that the Christians have four 
biographies of their teacher, written by four disciples, named 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and so many letters of his 
Apostles, it would be as valid evidence as if it were found in a 
genuine epistle of Clement of Eome or of Ignatius. The New 
Testament (in this general sense) is at once the earliest written 
record and the earliest tradition : its authority is taken for 
granted throughout early antiquity ; and it is this general 
admission, not any decree of Council or of Pope, which is our 
guarantee for its apostolic origin and supremacy. The absolute 
completeness of the Canon, and the authority of the New 
Testament, are widely different. To bring that authority down 
to the fourth or fifth century is to tear up the roots of Chris- 
tianity. ■ The decrees of the Church ! What do we know of the 
origin, of the Founder, to say nothing of the powers of the 
Church, but from the New Testament ? Tradition might retain 
some interpretative office ; but directly Christendom throughout 
her churches (and that must have been, from the evidence of 
every writing we possess, at a very early period) recognized the 
written Word, it was absolved from its duty of depositary 
and guardian of the Christian revelation. What Christian 
writer, when he can adduce the words of Scripture, adduces 
any other ? 

Throughout this preliminary discussion there is, to our feel- 
ings, an inexpressibly melancholy tone at once of desperate 
menace and of desperate apology. The menace is addressed 
to all Christians who refuse to receive the whole of mediaeval 
Christianity. 4 Accept the creed of Pope Pius IV., or tremble 
at least for that of Nicasa. Submit to the doctrine of Purga- 
tory, or surrender that of original sin.' To his former friends, 

x 



306 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



the high Anglicans, Mr. Newman's language is still more stern 
and significant. 6 Gro on with me, or I will spurn down the 
narrow plank on which we have stood together over the dizzy 
abyss, and leave you to your fate ! Your apostolic succession, 
your lofty notions of the Sacraments, your real presence, I will 
rend them from you with my merciless logic, unless you bow 
with me in lowly submission to the Papal supremacy.' The 
desperate apology is to his own conscience. Drawn irresistibly 
towards Eome, by thoughts over which he has long brooded— 
which he has developed into a complete mastery over his mind 

of the soul-absorbing austerities, the majestic sacerdotal 

power, the imaginative devotion, above all the unharassed 
faith, and fondly promised peace of unquestioning submission ; 
driven by those dire Eumenides, which in Grod's mysterious 
Providence are permitted to haunt the noblest, and by nature, 
until steeled by what seems heaven-ordained bigotry, the 
gentlest, and the purest of spirits, by Doubt, and Terror, and 
Dissatisfaction with what is, and painful craving after the 
Unattainable — (wisely wrote the old heathen, though of a lower 
object, 

Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quern milii, quem tibi 
Finera Dii dederint, Leuconoe) — 

Mr. Newman has rushed to the altar which seemed to be 
that of the Soothing and Appeasing Deity. His mind felt an 
absolute necessity for Infallibility ; he had sought the oracles 
of Grod, but in vain. 6 We are told,' he writes, £ that (rod has 
spoken. Where ? In a book ? We have tried it, and it 
disappoints ; it disappoints, that most holy and blessed gift, 
not from fault of its own, but because it is used for a purpose 
for which it was not given' (p. 126). But let us solemnly ask, 
what did Mr. Newman seek in that Book to which the 
mysterious shrine gave back but a vague, ambiguous, awful, 
and unconsolatory answer ? Did he seek Monasticism, — a 
despotic Hierarchy,— Sacraments which work like magic spells, 
irrespective of moral and religious influences, — an unbounded 



Essay VI.]. DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 307 

confidence in priestly absolution, — minute observances, — a full 
and logical* creed, — a manual of passionate devotion ? Was he 
content to seek, what any man who has received an ordinary 
Christian education may surely find, the sublimest notions of the 
Divine nature, not wrought out, it may be true, in subtle me- 
taphysical formularies, but not the less convincing, not the less 
commanding, not the less controlling, not the less engaging, 
not the less the infelt work of the Divine Comforter; the 
promise of remission of sins and of eternal life through Christ 
and Christ alone ; maxims of such generous and benignant and 
comprehensive morality, that it is impossible to conceive any 
private or social condition of man, in which they will not 
furnish a perfect rule of life ; two great, eternal, immutable 
principles, the love of Grod and the love of man, the application 
of which in the various forms of civilization, in all the vicissi- 
tudes in the life of the human being, and in the life of humanity, 
is the true development of Christianity ? 

We must confess that it is the awful distinctness, not the 
obscurity, of the New Testament, which would appal and dis- 
tress us, if it were not that the reassuring promises were equally 
or even more clear. We are content to leave in that vagueness, 
which is alone satisfactory to the enlightened reason, the in- 
conceivable state of the human being after death, whether in 
bliss or woe. The silence, or the dim and figurative intimations 
of the New Testament are to us infinitely more satisfactory, as 
infinitely more accordant with Divine wisdom and the moral 
probation of man, than the distinct map, as it were, of Pur- 
gatory, and Hell, and Heaven, which, without the licence of 
Dante's poetry, is preserved in mediaeval teaching. 

There are questions to which the New Testament gives no 
answer, but they are questions before which even Papal Infalli- 
bility cowers, and is either prudently silent or cautiously 
guarded. 

Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate, 
Fixed Fate, Free Will, Foreknowledge absolute, 



808 



NEWMAN ON THE 



, [Essay VI. 



infallible Eome, like fallible man, like the higher fallible beings 
of the poet, 

Can find no end, in wandering mazes lost ! 

On these points, wherever the Eoman Catholic Church has been 
betrayed into a decree, it has been constrained in due time to 
limit its own decisions by a counteracting if not contradictory 
sentence. It has asserted St. Augustine against Pelagius, and 
disclaimed him first against Grodescalc, later against Jansenius. 

We assert that there is no question essential to the salvation 
or to the moral perfection of man ; to man in any relation or 
condition of life ; to man in a state of trial and discipline ; to 
man as a citizen, as a husband, as a parent ; to man baptized 
into the faith of Christ ; to man conscientiously endeavouring 
to lead a Christian life ; to man as an heir of immortality, 
gradually trained by Christian sanctification to Christian im- 
mortality ; to man in life, and on his deathbed — which is not 
as fully answered by the New Testament as by all the decrees 
of Councils and of Popes. If man seeks for more, if he will 
aspire to unrevealed knowledge, to a minute and inflexible rule 
for his devotion ; above all, to an assurance, guaranteed by 
some irreversible sentence, anticipatory of (rod's retributive 
judgement as to the destiny of his own individual soul ; if he 
will needs demand more than Christian hope and Christian 
peace, then we say his demands are utterly inconsistent with 
the ordinary dealings of Grod's Providence, with what we humbly 
presume to be the scope and design of the revelation of Grod in 
Christ, 

We may have seemed to linger too long on the threshold, as 
it were, of Mr. Newman's work. But his opinions are looked 
up to with so much submission by many, with such curiosity by 
more, that we cannot prevail on ourselves to dismiss any part 
of them in what may appear disrespectful haste. 

What, then, is this great Theory of Development which the 
Church of Eome, it is true, does not recognize as its authorized 
manifesto to mankind ; but which, from the high character of 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHEISTIAN DOCTRINE. 309 



its advocates, seems, for a time at least, to supersede all the 
old established arguments of that Church, and has a right 
therefore to expect the most calm and unimpassioned examina- 
tion ? We have indeed somewhat anticipated one question, 
which is the key to the whole discussion. But the most com- 
plete and definite statement of this theory is contained in the 
following passage : — 

That the increase and expansion of the Christian Creed and Ritual, 
and the variations which have attended the process in the case of indi- 
vidual writers and churches, are the necessary attendants on any phi- 
losophy or polity which takes possession of the intellect and heart, and 
has had any wide or extended dominion ; that, from the nature of the 
human mind, time is necessary for the full comprehension and perfection 
of great ideas ; and that the highest and most wonderful truths, though 
communicated to the world once for all by inspired teachers, could 
not be comprehended all at once by the recipients — but, as received 
and transmitted by minds not inspired, and through media which were 
human, have required only the longer time and deeper thought for 
their full elucidation— this may be called The Theory of Developments. 
—P. 27. 

Now this ' developed ' Christianity is throughout declared and 
argued to be the only true and perfect religion of Christ. This 
is the scope and object of the book. 

The issue then is, the Christianity of the New Testament, or 
what, to avoid terms offensive on the one hand, or obviously 
improper on the other, we will call Mediaeval Christianity. 
For, though we presume that the culminating point, the last 
absolute crown and completion of the system, advances beyond 
that period, even to the Council of Trent and the Creed of 
Pope Pius, yet the phrase is sufficiently intelligible without 
jarring harshly on the feelings of either party. Up to that 
period it is assumed Christianity was not merely in a state of 
constant increase and expansion, but of advancement to per- 
fection. Development, until degeneracy and corruption begin, 
implies fulness, maturity, completeness. When we are com- 
manded, at the peril of our immortal souls, to throw off our 
own undeveloped, or imperfectly developed Christianity for the 



810 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



absolute and perfect form, we must satisfy ourselves that every 
enlargement of our "creed, whether by addition, expansion, com- 
prehensiveness — every law imposed upon our practice, every 
assumption of power by those who require our submission, 
every principle which is enforced upon us, and the extent to 
which every principle is to be carried out — every minute iota, 
in short, of ecclesiastical ordinance, which, though insignificant 
in itself, may, if infringed, bring forth within us a dangerous 
tendency to independence — every demand which has been made 
on our faith or our obedience by the dominant rulers of the 
Church, rests on authority as absolutely divine, as distinctly 
the audible Word of God, as undoubtedly a revelation from the 
great Creator of man, as if it had been uttered amid the thun- 
der of Sinai, or spoken by our Lord and by his Apostles. 
Inspiration, according to this argument, was no temporary gift 
— it dwells as fully on the lips of Popes and Fathers in council, 
as on those of St. Peter and St. Paul. 

According to this theory, what is the New Testament ? It 
is no Eevelation ; it is but the obscure and prophetic harbinger 
of a Eevelation. It is no great harmonious system of truths ; 
it has but the rude outlines, the suggestive elements of those 
truths ; it is no code of law, but a rudimental first conception 
of a law. Its morality is no establishment of great principles, 
to be applied by the conscience of the individual man, but a 
collection of vague and ambiguous maxims. Of the way of 
salvation it utters but dark and oracular hints ; it has brought 
life and immortality but into a faint and hazy twilight; the 
Sun of Eighteousness rose not to his full meridian till the 
Council of Trent. No doubt the interpretation, and still more 
the personal application, of the Scripture is a difficult task ; 
and, notwithstanding Mr. Newman's abstruse argument, we 
presume that its difficulty was intended in the Divine counsels. 
It is not in the cultivation of the earth alone that 

Pater ipse colendi 
Hand facile m esse viam voluit. 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 311 

But as to this interpretation, we dare affirm, that though 
very great deference be due to the earlier writers, as possessing 
peculiar opportunities of knowledge, yet were they not guaran- 
teed in any especial manner from foreign influences, from the 
prepossessions and prejudices of their age, their position, their 
habits of thought and feeling ; and there are advantages which 
belong to us, who may benefit by all that is valuable in their 
wisdom, and to it may add our own (our more accurate phi- 
losophy of language for instance, our wider acquaintance with 
languages in general)— so that we are bold to say, that, on the 
whole, Biblical Criticism is in a state of legitimate development 

to our own day. 

Mr. Newman has given us an example of the manner in which 
he conceives that the obscure hints of the Scriptures are legi- 
timately developed into doctrines b inding in perpetu ity on the 
whole Christian Church. But we are compelled to say, that if 
we were not familiar with the very peculiar structure of Mr. 
Newman's mind— now endowed with logical acuteness and pre- 
cision almost unrivalled in his day, and which may have enabled 
him in earlier and more quiet times to do amicable battle with 
the future Archbishop Whately— now stooping to a rubbish of 
false inferences and incomplete analogies, of which a child would 
be ashamed ;— we should scarcely have believed that he would 
have ventured such passages in a work written with great 
caution, as we might have supposed, and after deep medi- 
tation. 

It may be added that, in matter of fact, all the definitions or received 
judgements of the earlier and mediaeval Church rest upon definite, even 
though sometimes obscure sentences of Scripture. Thus Purgatory may 
appeal to the < saving by fire,' and < entering through much tribulation 
into the kingdom of God ; ' the communication of the merits of the Saints 
to our 'receiving a prophet's reward' for 'receiving a prophet in the 
name of a prophet,' and < a righteous man's reward' for < receiving a 
righteous man in the name of a righteous man;' the Real Presence to 
< This is my Body ; ' Absolution to ' Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are 
remitted ; ' Extreme Unction to ' Anointing him with oil in the name 
of the Lord ; ' Voluntary poverty to ' Sell all that thou hast ; ' obedience 



312 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



to 1 He was in subjection to His parents ; ' the honour paid to creatures, 
animate or inanimate, to Laudate Dominum in Sanctis Ejus, and 
Adorate scabellum pedum Ejus, and so of the rest. — P. 112. 

Now, of these scriptural expressions, some three, it is well 
known, are of contested application, and therefore Mr. Newman 
may have a right to affirm the sense in which they are held in 
his Church. We know too that the text of St. Paul to the Corin- 
thians is the old desperate refuge of controversialists in favour 
of Purgatory ; but it should be fairly quoted 6 so as by fire,' ovroys 
Kal cos* 8ia irvpos ; and thus out of one metaphorical expression, 
a mere similitude, is developed a whole Intermediate Realm 
between the heaven and hell of the Scriptures, with all its 
fertile consequences. We are wrong ; there is another sentence, 
implying the difficulty of becoming a Christian and attaining 
Christian blessedness. So, too, the Communication of the 
Merits of Saints, a doctrine which, whether rightly or not, 
appears to trench most strongly on the very cardinal 4 idea ' of 
the Gospel, rests on a passage, 6 receiving a prophet's reward,' 
which to ordinary reason bears as much relation to it as to any 
other doctrine the most remote from its purpose. We cannot 
find space to examine the rest, but it is curious that Mr. New- 
man, in his last clause, is obliged to take refuge in the Latin 
—the original of 6 in Sanctis Ejus,' we humbly submit, signi- 
fying not in his Saints, but in his Sanctuary, his Holy of Holies ! 
And the footstool of God—of God, of whom Christ has spoken 
— whom man dare not worship but as pure Spirit K And is 
this the Biblical interpretation to which we are to gq back in 
the present age of Christianity ? 

But even these dim forebodings of future doctriles, these 
obscure suggestions which the fertile imagination of the later 
Church is to quicken into immutable, irrepealable articles of 
faith, cannot be obtained without submitting the Scriptures to 
another subtle process. The plain sense of the New Testa- 
ment is too stubbornly perspicuous. Mystic interpretation 
must be called in to throw its veil over the whole sacred 
volume. The simple narratives, the exquisite parables, the 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 313 

pure moral maxims, must be refined into one vast allegory, 
which may make it mean anything, and consequently mean 
nothing. 

And this has been the doctrine of all ages of the Church, as is 
shown by the disinclination of her teachers to confine themselves to the 
mere literal interpretation of Scripture. Her most subtle and powerful 
method of proof, whether in ancient or modern times, is the mystical 
sense, which is so frequently used in doctrinal controversy as on many 
occasions to supersede any other. Thus the Council of Trent appeals 
to the peace-offering spoken of in Malachi i. in proof of the Eucharistic 
Sacrifice ; to the water and blood issuing from our Lord's side, and to 
the mention of 'waters' in the Apocalypse, in admonishing on the 
subject of the mixture of water with the wine in the Oblation. Thus 
Bellarmine defends monastic celibacy by our Lord's words in Matthew 
xix'and refers to ' We went though fire and water,' &c. in the Psalm, 
as an argument for Purgatory ; and these, as is plain, are but speci- 
mens of a rule. Now, on turning to primitive controversy, we find 
this method of interpretation to be the very basis of the proof of the 
Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity. — P. 323. 

It may almost be laid down (he says below) as an historical fact, 
that the mystical interpretation and orthodoxy will stand or fall together. 

Still further, Mr. Newman quotes with full approbation the 
character of St. Ephrem, from a recent learned German 6 :— 

Ephrem is not so sober in his interpretations, nor could he he (the 
italics are Mr. Newman's), since he was a zealous disciple of the ortho- 
dox faith. For all those who are eminent in such sobriety were as far 
as possible removed from the faith of the Councils ! 

Mr. Newman has the extraordinary candour to contrast with 
this strange Christian cabbala (for it is nothing else), and to 
the disadvantage of Hales, whom he condemns as a latitudinarian, 
a well-known passage from the Golden Eemains of that writer. 
The sum of Hales's argument is — 

The literal, plain, and uncontrovertible meaning of Scripture, with- 
out any addition or supply by way of interpretation, is that alone which, 
for ground of faith, we are necessarily bound to accept : except it be 
there, where the Holy Ghost himself treads us out another way . . . 



6 Langerke de Ephrem, S. pp. 78, SO. 



314 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



The doctrine of the literal sense was never grievous or prejudicial to 
any, but only to those who were inwardly conscious that their positions 
were not sufficiently grounded. When Cardinal Cajetan, in the days 
of our grandfathers, had forsaken that vein of postilling and alle- 
gorizing on Scripture, which for a long time had prevailed in the 
Church, and betaken himself unto the literal sense, it was a thing so 
distasteful unto the Church of Eome, that he was forced to find out 
many shifts, and make many apologies for himself. — P. 326. 

And has Mr. Newman lived in such utter seclusion, or, what 
is more dangerous than seclusion, so completely environed by 
men entirely his inferiors, as to suppose that any power on earth 
can wring this great principle of the plain literal interpretation 
from the practical good sense of the English religious mind ? 
Sectarianism has also its allegorizing vein, and we will back the 
Pilgrim's Progress against the whole mass of Mediaeval mys- 
ticism. 

But not only the New Testament — the early Fathers also (of 
the three first centuries) give out but dim and oracular voices 
to be expanded into distinct and irrepealable decrees by the 
Mediaeval Church. After a dexterous quotation from Paley, 
who would account for the sparing manner in which the 
earlier apologists for Christianity urge the proof from miracles, 
on account of the general belief in magical powers, our author 
proceeds : — 

And, in like manner, Christians were not likely to entertain the 
question of the abstract allowableness of images in the Catholic ritual, 
with the actual superstitions and immoralities of Paganism before their 
eyes. Nor were they likely to determine the place of St. Mary in our 
reverence, before they had duly secured, in the affections of the faithful, 
the supreme glory and worship of God Incarnate, her eternal Lord and 
Son. Nor would they recognize Purgatory as a part of the dispen- 
sation, till the world had flowed into the Church, and a habit of cor- 
ruption had been superinduced. Nor could ecclesiastical liberty be 
asserted, till it had been assailed. Nor would a Pope arise, but in pro- 
portion as the Church was consolidated. Nor would monachism be 
needed, while martyrdoms were in progress. Nor could St. Clement 
give judgement on the doctrine of Berengarius, nor St. Dionysius refute 
the Ubiquists, nor St. Irenaeus denounce the Protestant view of Justi- 
fication, nor St. Cyprian draw up a theory of persecution. There is 1 a 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 315 

time for every purpose under the heaven;' 'a time to keep silence 
and a time to speak.' — P. 145. 

< A theory of persecution ! ' Is that the crown and climax of 
'development?' Mr. Newman must forgive us if— notwith- 
standing many significant hints in this and his other writings, 
notwithstanding the violence which he would do to his own 
nature, in order to work himself to the full height of mediaeval 
bigotry as well as mediaeval faith— our early reminiscences and 
indelible impressions of his character forbid us to believe that 
he would ' develop ' into a Torquemada. 

Thus, then, we seem drawn to the conclusion that Mr. New- 
man, notwithstanding his reservation for their latent sense and 
latent doctrines, virtually abandons the long-fought ground of 
Scripture, at least in its plain unmysticised meaning, and like- 
wise that of the early Fathers. If we do wrong to our author, 
he must himself bear his share in the blame. 

The medieval theology is a development of the great Idea 
of Christianity. But when we seek a definition of this great 
Idea, which is thus to expand into what at first appears alto- 
gether extraneous, if not irreconcilable (Mr. Newman almost 
admits as much) with what certainly appears its first vital 
principle, we seek in vain. From first to last there is no 
definition of the Idea of Christianity. So, too, as regards the 
Law of Development. Mr. Newman furnishes us, it is true, 
with certain tests which are to distinguish between a legiti- 
mate development and a corruption or degeneracy. But pre- 
viously he has bewildered us (and, with respect be it spoken, 
apparently himself) with illustrations of development, with 
more or less remote analogies from the vegetable and animal 
kingdoms, from politics, and history, and philosophy, which 
only prove what no man in his senses ever thought of doubting, 
that development, in other words progress, or at least change, 
is an eternal law of human things. One of the first and 
most elaborate of these illustrations is the development of 
Wesleyan Methodism, from which we collect either that John 
Wesley had no distinct idea at all of his own design, or that 



316 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



Wesleyanism has absolutely departed from that original idea. 
If Wesley had any positive idea, it was the revival of religion, 
according to his own views, within the Church of England. 
The end, everyone knows, has been the establishment of a large 
and singularly well-organized sect, if not, as we devoutly 
hope, directly adverse to, yet certainly without the Church. 
Wesley, indeed, lived to sanction or to conduct all these 
changes; he seceded from the Church after many struggles, 
and with fond and reverential regret ; but passages might be 
quoted without end in which he acknowledges his departure 
from his original purpose. 

Let us throw aside then all these incomplete, and therefore 
deceptive, analogies, and confine ourselves to the development 
of Christianity. Who can doubt that development? It was 
inseparable from progress, from expansion. The Church, which 
on the day of Pentecost consisted of the Apostles and a few 
faithful followers, developed into a community of many thou- 
sands — that community into multiplying churches throughout 
the world. The hurried prayer, the simple hymn to Christ 
while the persecutor watched the door, developed into a grave 
and solemn ritual. The lonely chamber, the oratory by the 
seaside or in the catacomb, developed into a church and into 
a cathedral. The Bishop, from the head of a community 
without the laws of the empire, into a spiritual magistrate, 
recognized, endowed, honoured by the Christian emperors. 

The doctrines of Christianity, for (rod's wise and, as we 
think, discernible purposes, were not presented to the mind of 
man as one full, and regular, and comprehensive creed, but in 
the various sayings of the Saviour recorded in the Gospels, and 
those of his Apostles. They gradually unfolded as the facts, 
such as the Death and Resurrection of the Lord, the effusion 
of the Holy Grhost, out of which they grew, followed in due 
course. At length they naturally assumed the form of creeds. 
The less important truths shrunk back into their comparative 
or temporary insignificance ; those which were vital, essential, 
eternal, stood out in their commanding dignity. The laws 



.Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 317 



of Christian obedience were not drawn out, even with as 
much precision as those of the Levitical books, into one 
regular code. Great principles were established ; Christian 
dispositions commanded; unchristian vices reproved; Chris- 
tian virtues exalted. Above all, there was a certain Spirit 
which was to modify, and temper, and test the letter of the 
Scripture, and which seemed thus an appeal from Grod to the 
heart of man, at once avouching the truth of the Revelation, 
and affording an eternal touchstone, as it were, for its true 
Christianity. 'No one,' says Mr. Newman himself, 'will say 
that Christianity has not always taught benevolence and mercy' 
(p. 5). This we accept. Will Mediaeval Christianity through- 
out submit to this ordeal as an eternal, immutable condition 
of the Grospel ? 

The whole history of Christianity is a development — a deve- 
lopment of its internal powers, its irresistible influences over 
the mind of man. Every page of Mr. Newman's book then, so 
far as regards the fact of development, is true. And still 
further : who supposes that any one of what we presume to 
consider the unwarranted additions to the creed of the Grospel 
did not grow up by degrees, and was not the offspring in some 
sense of earlier doctrines ? We are all Developists ; every writer 
of the history of Christianity describes its development. 

What is wanted throughout — what is absolutely necessary, is 
the proof that those tenets of Mediaeval Christianity, which 
were undeveloped till a much later period, which were unknown, 
or which even Mr. Newman despairs of proving to have been 
known in primitive and Apostolic times, all which he describes 
himself ' as an addition upon the Articles of the Creed' (p. 116), 
which he elsewhere calls the ' supplement ' to Scriptural or 
Apostolic Christianity — the question is whether these are 
essential and integral parts of Christianity, to be imposed 
upon all Christendom on the penalty of anathema, of exclusion 
from the Church, and in consequence (according to the inflexible 
theory) irremediably from eternal life. We are thrown back 
upon the question of this authority, by which Christianity is 



318 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



still in the process of revelation, by which new Christian truths 
are gradually brought to light, to be received with the same 
veneration as those declared by our Lord and his Apostles. 
Mr. Newman's chapter (p. 114) on the Probability of a Develop- 
ing Authority in Christianity professes to solve this momentous 
question. On this his whole theory of development, so far as 
it is to be universal, eternal Christianity, absolutely depends ; 
yet is this chapter (we have most severely and conscientiously 
scrutinized our judgement) the most feeble and inconclusive in 
the whole book. 

We will not take exception at the modest but somewhat 
hesitating expression, the 'probability' of an infallible authority, 
as if even Mr. Newman's courage failed, and his refractory logic 
refused to assert more. Unquestionably there are points, and 
those of the highest importance, on which we must rest content 
with high moral probability. Except in mathematics we can 
rarely have more. But throughout, two questions are mingled 
in inextricable confusion. That there is an infallible guide 
we all admit ; but what is that guide ? ' The Scripture,' asserts 
one party. Nothing that is not in harmony, nothing which has 
not grown visibly, if not immediately by visible processes, and 
in its clue proportion out of the Scriptures, is pure, eternal, 
immutable Christianity. Infallibility was in our Lord and in 
his Apostles, a living infallibility so long as they were upon earth 

a living, in another sense an undying, infallibility in those 

written words to which we may without irreverence apply our 
Lord's saying, 6 that they shall never pass away.' The analogy 
of Creation, instead of being against, strongly confirms this 
view. Grod made the worlds ; He made them subject to certain 
laws of development ; He superintends the whole by His unsleep- 
ing providence ; and if He again interferes, that act of inter- 
ference is a miracle. God revealed Christianity ; He endowed 
it with certain moral principles, with a living power of develop- 
ment ; He watches it no doubt with parental care ; but here 
also His direct interposition can be no less than a miracle. 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHEISTIAN DOCTKINE. 319 

Now infallibility must be a standing miracle, at least at variance 
with the course of Grod's ordinary Providence ; it must be a 
direct inspiration of superhuman knowledge. ' Supposing the 
order of nature,' writes Mr. Newman, 6 once broken by the in- 
troduction of a revelation, the continuance of that revelation 
is but a question of degree ; and the circumstance that a work 
has begun makes it more probable that it will proceed.' That 
is, we rejoin, a revelation once made must be always making. 
6 We have no reason to suppose that there is so great a distinc- 
tion between ourselves and the first generation of Christians as 
that they had a living infallible guidance and we have not,' 
No doubt there is no such distinction. They had the living 
ApostTes — we, we repeat, the Apostles in their living word. 
By Mr. Newman's argument, if it be valid, we have a most 
enormous advantage : sinful men that we are, that we do not 
profit more by it ! We have, or might have, the Apostles in 
their writings — and besides, an infallible guide, or rather a 
succession of infallible guides also ; and not only guides con- 
servative of old truths, but authorized to proclaim new ones. 
'As creation argues continual government, so are Apostles 
harbingers of Popes ! ' Thus the unchangeable Church is in 
a constant state of change ! Mr. Newman might add another 
title to his work, 6 The History of the Mutability of the 
Immutable Church.' 

But the historical development of this Infallibility is a 
curious phenomenon. If it lived after the Apostles, it was at 
first in the Apostolic churches ; it was diffused throughout the 
writings of certain Fathers of the Church ; then it dwelt in 
the Universal Episcopate ; then it sate in councils, where it 
always went with the majority (except when the majority was 
heretical, as at Eimini) ; at length, after near five centuries, it 
began to centralize itself — it was at last fully developed in 
the Pope. So slowly and doubtfully did this supreme and 
ultimate arbiter of true developments develop itself. And 
when fully and absolutely developed, to what does it amount ? 



320 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



All Catholics agree in other two points, not, however, with heretics, 
but solely with each other : first, that the Pope with General Council 
cannot err either in framing decrees of faith or general precepts of 
morality; secondly, that the Pope, when determining anything in a 
doubtful matter, whether by himself or with his own particular Council, 
whether it is possible for him to err or not, is to he obeyed by all the 
faithful. — P. 125. 

The italics are Mr. Newman's. And is this all that I obtain? 
exclaims the bewildered but earnest Christian — the privilege 
of obedience, of the moral blessing thus supposed to be at- 
tached to obedience, by embracing what I know, at least what 
I fear to be error ? Voluntary error, according to the rigid 
Church theory, is, at least may be, mortal sin. Alas ! whither 
shall I fly ? Private judgement is rebellion, error is death. Yet 
private judgement forces itself upon me ; in the very sanctuary 
it demands of me, Is this the true sanctuary of (rod ? My most 
absolute renunciation of private judgement is an act of private 
judgement. 

If Infallibility thus rests on the satisfaction which it affords 
to the harassed conscience (and, in truth, we find no other 
argument), how do we meet this further difficulty ? After all, 
what is an Infallible Church to me, speaking in vague old 
canons which I cannot read, in huge tomes of divinity, or 
dwelling aloof in a remote country? What I want is an 
infallible guide to my own conscience, one who will in all points 
at once enlighten my own mind and give me the perfect peace 
of spiritual security. It may be well for Mr. Newman, and 
learned men like Mr. Newman, to consult those deeply buried 
oracles of infallibility, or to find their way to the fountain-head 
of infallibility. Unless my spiritual pastor be likewise infallible 
it can be to me no consolation ; at all events, I must be sure 
that he faithfully reports to me the words of infallibility. But 
he shows me his commission. Private judgement, which may 
perhaps be permitted to demand this, beholds it and is awed to 
silence. Yet I cannot help discerning that, peremptory as he is 
on these points, he is in all other respects an extremely ignorant 
man; and — though it is an uncommon case, I allow — an 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 321 

immoral and unchristian man. (In Mediaeval times we fear 
that this might have suggested itself, and did suggest itself, to 
very many conscientious Christians.) Am I sure that his igno- 
rance may not have mistaken, or his immorality led him to 
misrepresent, this infallible message? We are unwilling in 
such limited space to open historic controversies ; but if ancient 
records speak true, Infallibility on its highest throne has 
cowered with fear or wandered into error ; Infallibility has 
Arianised, has Pelagianised, has Monotheletised. Infallibility 
has dwelt with youths under age. If it has issued from the 
lips of some of the best, so it has at least from some few of the 
worst of men. 

Nor is this the difficulty of the individual alone. "We have 
already observed that, on many of the most momentous questions, 
we derive no advantage from Infallibility. This is acknowledged 
by Mr. Newman in a remarkable passage : — 

To this day the rule of Scripture Interpretation, the doctrine of 
Inspiration, the relation of Faith to Reason, moral responsibility, private 
judgement, inherent grace, the seat of Infallibility ! remain, I suppose, 
more or less undeveloped, or at least undefined by the Church. — P. 368. 

Yet it is very singular that some of these are among the very 
points on which Mr. Newman, in order to show the probability 
of developments, insists as demanding the authoritative settle- 
ment of the Church. There is another point, he says, ' the 
relation of Christianity to civil government, which must be 
ascertained, and the qualification for membership with it 
defined.' On this the Infallibility of Eome throughout the 
Middle Ages pronounced, and in no hesitating tone. Innocent 
III.'s famous similitude of the sun and moon, to show the 
subordination of the temporal to the spiritual power, is the 
language more or less distinct of Infallibility. But throughout 
Eoman Catholic Christendom is this infallible decree, or at least 
this declaration of an infallible arbiter, respected as the definite 
development of Christianity ? The relation of Church and 
State rests in France on the constitution, in Austria on the 

Y 



322 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



will of the Emperor. These decisions of Infallibility are utterly 
obsolete, except in the kingdom of Sardinia, and perhaps 
Belgium and a few of the smaller states of Italy. Nevertheless 
on no subject has fully developed Infallibility been more 
explicit. It might almost seem to have neglected all the 
grave, spiritual, and intellectual problems which might distract 
the mind of man, in order that it might carefully assign its 
proper place in the social system to the hierarchy. In the 
canons of councils, and the decrees of popes, for several ages, 
the dignity and power of the clergy, the sanctity of their 
persons, the security of their property from sacrilegious hands, 
might appear the special object over the development of which 
Infallibility was bound to watch with unslumbering care. 

Thus Infallibility, imperious and dictatorial on what we do 
not want, or on what is not of the first necessity, seems to 
abandon us in our greatest need : she will bind burthens upon 
us, but lighten none of those under the weight of which we 
groan. We rest in humble hope on one Mediator. She will 
supply us with, and indeed compel us to receive, hosts of 
subsidiary intercessors at least, if not Mediators. We repose 
in unquestioning faith on the promises of pardon and peace in 
the Gospel of Christ : she will enforce upon us, as indispensable 
to our salvation, a vast and cumbrous system of theology, which 
has been accumulating for centuries. Mr. Newman's chief if 
not sole argument for Infallibility is its presumed necessity. 
We not only say that this is no argument to those who feel not 
the necessity, whose necessity it does not relieve ; to those who 
rest on the sufficiency of Scripture to reveal, with as much 
distinctness as man may dare to hope, all that is eternal, 
immutable, absolutely essential in Christianity : but we submit 
further whether God's gifts are to be presumed according to 
man's supposed necessities — whether, because great advantage 
may seem to accrue to man from certain provisions, we have a 
right to conclude that <xod actually has made those provisions; 
because some of us may be distressed at the want of clearness 
in the revelation which Grod has made in the Scripture, that he 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OE CHKISTIAN DOCTKLNE. 



323 



must therefore have made, be perpetually making, a clearer 
revelation, equally authoritative, beyond the Scriptures. With 
Mr. Newman's wide liberty of analogy, we might suggest that 
Infallibility would be of inappreciable advantage in other 
things besides religion. If the Queen were invested with a 
very limited infallibility, to discern which were the better 
policy on the great questions which divide the nation — or even 
as to the best hands in which she could confide the interests of 
her people — this unquestionably would be a great consolation 
to her Majesty, and would allay much angry and dangerous 
strife among her subjects. If Lord Denman were endowed with 
an infallible judgement as to the guilt or innocence of the 
unhappy criminals who are capitally arraigned before him — what 
unspeakable relief would it be to the mind of that humane 
judge — what implicit reliance would it give us all in the laws 
of our country ! If the President of the College of Physicians 
possessed only the gift of discerning indisputably the attain- 
ments of those whom we entrust with the power of life 
and death — how great would be the diminution of mortality 
among us — how much would it add to individual happiness ! 
We mean not this as a Qfrave refutation of the question of the 
Infallibility of Council or Pope, but as a complete answer to 
the only valid argument which we can find in Mr. Newman's 
chapter. And even Mr. Newman seems as if unsatisfied with 
himself ; he sinks still lower in his demands upon our belief. 
It is at last only an hypothesis ; 

and every one (he says) has an hypothesis on the development of 
Christianity. Gibbon has one; Gieseler has another; Baronius is 
ultramontane ; Hurd and Newton ultra-Protestant. The question is 
(he proceeds), which of all these theories is the simplest, the most 
natural, the most persuasive? Certainly, the notion of development 
under infallible authority is not a less grave, a less winning hypothesis, 
than the chance and coincidence of events, or the Oriental philosophy, 
or the working of Antichrist, to account for the rise of Christianity, 
and the formation of its theology. 

We must protest against being confounded with any of these 

T 2 



324 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. 

schools, if they are fairly represented ; and yet we think that 
we are not reduced to rest on an undefined infallibility. But 
does Eoman Catholicism mean to march to the reconquest 
of the world on the frail and tottering bridge of this < hypo- 
thesis?' Yet it is the only way left. Mr. Newman has dis- 
dainfully thrown aside, or courteously discarded, all the older 
and all the later theories of Papal supremacy; clear and 
positive tradition— the disciplina areani— his own doctrine of 
Reserve. Had Cardinal Buperron rested altogether on the 
< Theory of Developments,' it would have been difficult for Henry 
IV. gravely to play out the solemn comedy of his conversion. 

Already the ground seems utterly to have broken up under 
Mr. Newman's feet. But to proceed : objections crowd upon us 
at the outset. Were these doctrines, in their full development, 
necessary to salvation? Why, then, may we reverently ask, 
were they withheld from the early Christians, who bore the heat 
of the fray, and bought the triumph of the Gospel, if we may 
so speak, by the blood of martyrdom? Why were they left 
with these dim and imperfect hints of such great doctrines ? 
Why were they worse off than the contemporaries of St. Bernard, 
or of Thomas Aquinas ? All our fond illusions of the purity of 
primitive times ; our blameless envy of those who heard the 
Gospel from apostolic lips, or the lips of apostolic men, are 
dissipated at once. They, it is true, laid down their lives in 
humble and unquestioning hope of the resurrection through 
Christ Jesus; but to them Purgatory was an undiscovered 
region. They had full trust in the death of the Eedeemer, but 
they wanted a clear notion of the intercession of the saints. 
They had bishops, perhaps in the first or second descent from 
those on whom the Apostles laid their hands, but they had not 
even a vision of the majestic .autocracy of the Pope. They had 
the New Testament fresh, as it were, from the hands of its holy 
writers ; but from them were hidden, even from their prescient 
desires, the decrees of councils, and the solemn intricacies of 
scholastic theology. They had the Son of God ever present to 
their minds, but they had not even feeble glimpses of the 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 325 

glories of the Mother of Grod. They had communities, bound 
together by the holy spirit of love ; the sweet charities of life, 
deepened and sanctified by their religion ; the consciousness of 
moral purity in the midst of the darkest corruption ; they had 
all the Christian graces, all that is 4 lovely and of good report ;' 
but they had no desert hermitages, no monasteries, no scourges 
for the rebellious flesh, no hair-shirt, no belt of iron around 
the loins, no solitaries on their pillars for years of self-inflicted 
misery, no irrevocable vows, surprised from youth, of mis-esti- 
mated celibacy. They loved one another so marvellously as to 
excite the jealous amazement of the heathen, but they had not 
those great supplementary truths which arose, according to Mr. 
Newman, out of heresy and strife. They had the strength to 
suffer persecution, but as yet had developed 4 no theory of 
persecution.' 

There is another singular circumstance. Christianity is ad- 
vancing towards its perfect development, while mankind is de- 
generating into the darkest barbarism and ignorance. From 
the beginning of the fifth to the opening, at the earliest, of the 
twelfth century (notwithstanding the premature apparition of 
Charlemagne and of our own Alfred), is the age of the most 
total barrenness of the human mind, of the most unbroken 
slumber of human thought, of the utmost cruelty, and, must 
we not add, licentiousness of manners. This is obviously too 
large a subject to be entered upon at present. Yet there is 
not a poet, from Claudian to Dante, not a philosopher (shall we 
except the rationalizing Scotus Erigena ?) from Boetius (a low 
point of departure) to Anselm. Even in the Church itself how 
many great names of writers do we encounter from the close 
of the fourth century to St. Bernard ? 

It is strange that the clergy, that bishops, that popes, cannot 
escape the growing ferocity, the all-enveloping ignorance of 
the times ; and yet they are not only faithfully watching the 
trembling lamp of Christian faith, but they are adding to its 
lustre. Their wisdom is (as we are to suppose) steadily on the 
increase, while every other growth of the human mind isS 



326 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



dwindling down almost to utter extinction. Even Mr. Newman 
pauses ; he will not carry out to the full close his pregnant 
theory of development. Even he will not avouch the works of 
the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, quoted by Popes, and 
contributing to Mediseval theology; (in how large a degree 
would be a curious question, which we commend to Dr. Mait- 
land). Even he stops short of the false Decretals, that last and 
crowning development of a fatal principle — pious fraud, which 
makes the honest writer of ecclesiastical history tremble at 
every step he takes; and which tended in no inconsiderable 
degree to complete the majestic structure of the Papal power. 
"Will Mr. Newman pursue his principle of the development of 
the supreme power into the direct assertion of universal tem- 
poral supremacy, as it was boldly advanced by Innocent III. ? 
or, in his next 4 Essay on Miracles,' will he develop his faith 
into a vindication of a certain narrative of miracles in the 
works of Gregory the Great, from which some writers have 
vainly attempted to rescue the infallibility of that good and 
holy pontiff? Is there nothing of superstition which has been 
avouched by full ecclesiastical authority ? no exaggerated hier- 
archical pretension advanced with papal sanction? Will he 
subscribe implicitly to all? Every canon and every decree, 
every word which, after due deliberation, has been uttered by 
Infallibility, is of equal authority. We cannot elude one iota 
of the whole unrepealed decretals, without incurring the 
anathema which is ever their appalling close ; each is as much 
an eternal Christian verity, as a sentence in the Sermon on the 
Mount, or those uttered by St. Paul at Athens, or written by 
St. John at Ephesus. 

Our author proceeds to adduce, and to apply to the whole 
course of Christian history, until he has built up the full and 
stately fabric of his Mediseval Christianity, seven tests of 
fidelity of development. These are, I. The preservation of Idea. 
II. Continuity of Principle. III. The power of Assimilation. 
IV. Early Anticipation. V. Logical Sequence. VI. Preservative 
Additions. VII. Chronic Continuance. 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 327 

I. The first of these tests, then, is the Preservation of Idea, 
that is, of the < essential idea of Christianity.' Here at least 
we shall meet on some ground of mutual understanding. 

Of all writers we have least sympathy with those who suppose 
Christianity to have been in a state of suspended animation at 
least, if not of utter extinction, from the fourth century to the 
Eeformation; to have given place to a religion little better 
than Paganism or new Polytheism, an un-Christian idolatry ; in 
other words, that for nearly ten out of its eighteen centuries 
Christianity was without Christ. But the preservation of the 
essential idea of Christianity, that is of Christianity itself, in 
all its sublimity and purity, is one thing ; its escaping all 
corruption, degeneracy, or obscuration, is a very different one. 

If, in its long struggle with the world, Christianity did not 
escape worldly influences ; if foreign principles seem to work 
into its very life — its rites to assimilate themselves to those of 
older religions— even its language to be impregnated with 
terms borrowed from other forms of belief ; if from the Eastern 
philosophy it mainly received its monasticism ; if from the 
rhetorical and philosophic schools of Greece, its rage for dis- 
putation ; still may we aver, with unhesitating confidence, that 
the great vital doctrines of Christianity asserted and maintained 
their immortality. They leavened and quickened the ac- 
cumulating mass of strange and gradually developed error. 
However hardened by barbarous ferocity, however overclouded 
by barbarous ignorance, Christianity still lived on. The lamp 
of truth, which was handed down from age to age, burned not 
continually with the same clear, soft, and holy light, but it never 
went out. Men never forgot the great secret of immortality, 
if not first revealed, first assured by Christ ; the throne of the 
One Universal Father, though at more and more undiscoverable, 
impenetrable distance, was felt to be above them. Christ and 
his Cross, though crowded upon by other intercessors, who some- 
times almost usurped his place, still, in theory at least, stood 
high and superior. Baptism received the neophyte into the 
Church; the Eucharist, though at length materialized into 



328 NEWMAN ON THE [EssAY 

transubstantiation, and separated into two parts, joined the be- 
lievers m holy communion with the Redeemer. The terrors 
of hell, the hopes of heaven (with all the intermediate realm 
of Purgatory which they had spread out), were wielded by the 
clergy with unwarranted, arbitrary, and capricious power- 
yet never relaxed their hold on the moral nature of man. 
Human responsibility, though tampered with by indulgences, 
taught to rest on dead ceremonial observances, on endless repe- 
titions of prayers not understood, on all the wild Antinomian- 
ism under which a life of crime and cruelty was cancelled by 
a pilgrimage to some shrine, an offering at some altar, or some 
much easier act of homage to a tutelary saint, still lurked in 
the depths of the soul, to reawaken at God's good time to the 
higher morality of more enlightened, more truly faithful, though 
perhaps less ceremonial days. 

We go further; we believe the errors of the Mediaeval 
Church to have been her strength. Monasticism, the exorbi- 
tant power of the clergy, Polytheism itself by its adaptation to 
the spirit of the succeeding ages, contributed to preserve, to 
disseminate the unperishing truths of Christianity. To the 
Church, to the Papacy itself, mankind owes an immense 
debt of gratitude; only not to be repaid at the sacrifice of a 
purer, a more rational Christianity, which alone can maintain 
Christian authority in our own later times. We glance but 
rapidly on this subject which would require more than a volume, 
or rather a complete ecclesiastical history, to elucidate with 
justice and with candour. We too are Medievalists ; we too 
can admire all the wonderful creations of that period, its 
cathedrals, its paintings, its sculptures, its music, its philoso- 
phers, and its poets. We too can stand in devout awe under 
the roof of Cologne, or before the towers of Strasburg ; we can 
gaze on the cartoons, on the Madonnas of Raffaelle, with as 
untiring reverence. We too can appreciate the subtlety of an 
Anselm, the wonderful reason of an Aquinas ; we can thrill over 
our Dante with as deep emotion as the most fervent believer 
in Rome's infallibility. 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 329 



We turned, then, with no common solicitude to discover Mr. 
Newman's conception of the Essential Ideal of Christianity. 
Here, at length, we shall have a guide through this subtle 
labyrinth; we shall know what Christianity was when it 
emerged fresh from the hands of its divine Creator : — at least 
it will appear in the Church of the first three centuries. To 
our utter disappointment we sought in vain. Nowhere 
throughout this work appears the true primitive idea, as far 
as it may be collected by impartial examination from the few 
written records, the symbols or genuine monuments of the 
time ; but instead of this the false idea, entertained of it, or 
supposed by Mr. Newman to have been entertained of it, by the 
heathen. This, we must plainly speak, seems to us a contro- 
versial artifice unworthy of Mr. Newman. We read : — 

There is a religious communion claiming a divine commission, and 
calling all other religious bodies around it heretical or infidel ; it is a 
well-organized, well- disciplined body ; it is a sort of secret society, 
binding together its members by influences and by engagements which 
it is difficult for strangers to ascertain. It is spread over the known 
world ; it may be weak or insignificant locally, but it is strong on the 
whole from its continuity ; it is smaller than other religious bodies toge- 
ther, but larger than each separately. It is a natural enemy to govern- 
ments external to itself; it is intolerant and engrossing, and tends to a 
new modelling of society ; it breaks laws, it divides families. It is a 
gross superstition ; it is charged with the foulest crimes ; it is despised 
by the intellect of the day ; it is frightful to the imagination of the 
many. And there is but one communion such. 

Place this description before Pliny or Julian; place it before Fre- 
derick the Second or Guizot. 1 Apparent dira? facies.' Each knows 
at once, without asking a question, who is meant by it. One object, 
and only one, absorbs each item of the detail in delineation. — Pp. 
204, 205. 

We find it difficult to suppress some indignation at this 
coupling together of the infidel Frederick and the noble- 
minded Christian M. Ghiizot. To M. Gruizot, beyond all living 
writers, the Church, the Mediaeval Church, owes a deep debt 
of gratitude for his generous appreciation of her real services 
to civilization and to mankind — and that announced in times 



330 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



when it was a strange and startling doctrine. And what 
sagacious intellect could so soon as M. (xuizot's discriminate 
the truth from the fallacy in these skilful phrases ? But this 
same notion is summed up by Mr. Newman still more fully in 
the following passage, which at once betrays its secret purpose, 
namely, to suggest that Christianity was monastic in the first, 
as it but began to be in the third, century — a religion of self- 
inflicted misery : — 

On the whole I conclude as follows : — if there is a form of Chris- 
tianity now in the world which is accused of gross superstition, of bor- 
rowing its rites and customs from the heathen, and of ascribing to forms 
and ceremonies an occult virtue ; — a religion which is considered to 
burthen and enslave the mind by its requisitions, to address itself to the 
weak-minded and ignorant, to be supported by sophistry and imposture, 
and to contradict reason and exalt mere irrational faith ; — a religion 
which impresses on the serious mind very distressing views of the guilt 
and consequences of sin, sets upon the minute acts of the day, one by 
one, their definite value for praise or blame, and thus casts a grave 
shadow over the future ; — a religion which holds up to admiration the 
surrender of wealth, and disables serious persons from enjoying it if 
they would ; — a religion, the doctrines of which, be they good or bad, 
are to the generality of men unknown ; which is considered to bear on 
its very surface signs of folly and falsehood so distinct that a glance 
suffices to judge of it, and careful examination is preposterous ; which is 
felt to be so simply bad, that it may be calumniated at hazard and at 
pleasure, it being nothing but absurdity to stand upon the accurate dis- 
tribution of its guilt among its particular acts, or painfully to determine 
how far this or that story is literally true, what must be allowed in can- 
dour, or what is improbable, or what cuts two ways, or what is not 
proved, or what may be plausibly defended ; — a religion such that men 
look at a convert to it with a feeling which no other sect raises except 
Judaism, Socialism, or Mormonism, with curiosity, suspicion, fear, dis- 
gust, as the case may be, as if something strange had befallen him, as if 
he had had an initiation into a mystery, and had come into communion 
with dreadful influences, as if he were now one of a confederacy which 
claimed him, absorbed him, stripped him of his personality, reduced 
him to a mere organ or instrument of a whole; — a religion which men 
hate as proselytizing, anti-social, revolutionary, as dividing families, 
separating chief friends, corrupting the maxims of government, making 
a mock at law, dissolving the empire, the enemy of human nature, and 
a ' conspirator against its rights and privileges ; ' — a religion which 
they consider the champion and instrument of darkness, and a pollution 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 331 



calling down upon the land the anger of heaven ; — a religion which they 
associate with intrigue and conspiracy, which they speak about in 
whispers, which they detect by anticipation in whatever goes wrong, 
and to which they impute whatever is unaccountable ; — a religion, the 
very name of which they cast out as evil, and use simply as a bad epi- 
thet, and which from the impulse of self-preservation they would per- 
secute if they could;— if there be such a religion now in the world, it is 
not unlike Christianity as that same world viewed it, when first it came 
forth from its Divine Author. — Pp. 240-243. 

This maybe ingenious, but is it honest? What have we 
to do with what Christianity seemed to the contemptuous 
heathen in the first centuries ; to what misrepresentations 
or calumnies it was exposed ? What was it, in itself, in the 
secluded chamber where it met to worship in secret ; — in the 
houses, in the habits, in the hearts of its first votaries ? 

Primaeval Christianity, we fearlessly assert, was not a religion 
of gloom ; it fled not to the desert, it brought not the self- 
torturing practices of the desert into the home ; the dominant 
sentiment was rejoicing at the glad tidings of the Gospel, the 
revelation of life and immortality brought to light by Christ. 
Look at every symbol ; it is of gentleness, of hope, of peace. 
The Good Shepherd, the Lamb, the vine with its clusters. The 
Christian appears returning from the dark regions of the grave ; 
the phoenix rising from her ashes. Even the cross was not 
among the very earliest symbols, and then it was a simple 
cross ; it required centuries of moody, monastic agency before 
the bleeding image of the Saviour was represented upon it. 
Eead the inscriptions in the catacombs, the later they are the 
more forcible our arguments ; all is quiet resignation of life, 
peace, and the hope of a joyful resurrection. 4 In pace' is the 
universal epitaph ; every symbol is of glad hope ; Jonah coming 
forth from the fish ; the dove from the ark ; the raising of 
Lazarus ; the deliverance of Daniel and the three children ; there 
too is ever the Good Shepherd watching in love over his own. 

The whole chapter which traces the development of this false 
Heathen Idea of Christianity is the ablest in the book, full of 
various reading, and told with ease and perspicuity ; it is not 



332 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



so profoundly theological as those which follow, and in which 
this same test is applied to the later centuries, but it is more 
full of general interest — the work, in short, of an accomplished 
scholar. Yet even on this plain historical question we are 
directly at issue with Mr. Newman. His own authorities, at 
least those which bear upon the question, are to our judgement, 
properly understood, directly against him. The theory is that 
Christianity was confounded in the heathen mind with those 
multifarious religions which flowed in from the East ; — few of 
them, we say (for on this point we differ from Mr. Newman), 
before the birth of our Saviour — Mithriac, Isiac, Phrygian, 
Bacchanalian : but all inseparably moulded up with the notion 
of magic, on which the Eoman mind looked with the utmost 
aversion, and against which the Eoman law pronounced the 
strongest condemnation. Yet we cannot but think that, at least 
before the breaking out of the Gnostic sects in the middle of 
the second century, the suspicion of magic, or indeed of any 
close relationship with the Oriental systems abovenamed, 
did not much affect the Roman mind in its estimate of 
Christianity. It was the Jewish descent of the Christians, with 
their assertion of the unsocial religious principles of the Jews, 
which was chiefly hateful to the Eoman world. That world 
recognized in them the same stern aversion to idolatry; the 
same, as it appeared, sullen withdrawal from the public games 
and festivals ; the same, as it was called, morose virtue, which 
condemned the universal licentiousness of manners. Even the 
foul charges of (Edipodean unions and Thyestean banquets did 
not necessarily imply magical rites : the nocturnal meetings to 
which the Christians were often reduced from the fear of perse- 
cution, and the assembling of the sexes together for common 
worship, gave rise to the former; possibly misapprehended 
Christian language in part to the latter calumny. The Jews, 
however the heathen world might resent what seemed their 
insolent intolerance, had yet the privilege of a nation to 
worship their national Grod, and as long as the Christians were 
but Jews, they were at first treated as they were at Corinth by 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 333 



G-allio ; afterwards as rebels against the law, as traitors to the 
state, of which in Eome the religion was a part, and as form- 
ing hetairise or associations (self-governed clubs or fraternities) 
against which the laws of Eome, from political rather than 
religious reasons, were suspiciously severe. It was when the 
subjects of Eome dared to deny the gods of Eome ; when the 
more successful proselytism of the Christians began to withdraw 
the people in masses from the national rites ; it was on the 
desertion of the temples in Bithynia that the hatred of the 
people, and the jealous watchfulness of the government were 
roused. The test by which the martyrs were tried appears to 
us conclusive ; it was one at which no Eoman addicted to 
ma gic — we doubt if any Isiac or Mithriac worshipper — would 
have scrupled for an instant ; it was to adore the Emperor, to 
offer incense before his statue, to invoke the gods: in their 
case it was sometimes added to blaspheme the name of Christ. 
In later times the indiscriminating fury of the populace, among 
other appellations of hate, might call them sorcerers or witches ; 
but the government was evidently better acquainted with their 
peculiar tenets, and employed the means of detection which 
they could neither escape nor elude. Magic, we believe, 
became only at a later period, when connected with the 
theurgy of the later Platonists, the crime imputed to large 
communities. It was before that of the individual, of the 
Canidia or the Erictho ; and vented its malignity, as we read 
in Virgil, in individual acts of fascination, or bewitchment, or 
destruction of limb or life. 

The first heathen notion of Christianity can be gathered only 
from the well-known passages in Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny 
the Younger. 

When these three well-informed writers (says Mr. Newman) call 
Christianity a superstition, and a magical superstition, they were not 
rising words at random. 

A superstition they unquestionably called it, as all foreign 
religions were called, but not a magical one. Tacitus speaks 
of their hatred to the human race. This was the standing 



334 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



charge against the Jews ; and, as far as it arose from their 
obstinate, unsocial aversion to all the public rites and festivals, 
was even more clearly imputable to the Christians. Nor was 
their hostility to the gods of mankind, which implied hatred of 
mankind, less rigid or avowed. In Suetonius, in that curious 
passage which shows perhaps that the opinion of that epigram- 
writer is not of much weight on such subjects, the Christians 
are clearly considered but a faction of Jews. Claudius, he says, 
expelled the Jews from Rome on account of the perpetual 
tumults excited by Chrestus. In another passage Suetonius 
certainly applies the word ' malefica ' to the superstition of the 
Jews, and in later writers, in the Theodosian laws, and in some 
accounts of the Christian martyrdoms, maleficium seems to 
have acquired the peculiar sense of, or to have been connected 
with, magic. But we doubt much whether it necessarily 
conveyed that meaning in the ordinary Latin of Suetonius or 
Tacitus. In one passage of Tacitus (Ann. xi. 69) it is certainly 
used in connection with witchcraft and enchantments, but the 
peculiar significance is indicated by the previous words. In 
several others, in the same writer, it merely means crimes, 
misdeeds, the deeds of a malefactor. The melting a silver 
statue of the emperor, to turn into money, is called maleficium. 
In two other passages of Suetonius which we have consulted, it 
is used in its general sense. Mr. Newman even forces the 
passage of Pliny into a support of his theory. He translates 
the 'carmen,' the hymn to Christ, some have supposed the 
alternating chaunt which was reported to be sung as part of 
the Christian worship, as a magical incantation. The innocent 
word 6 carmen ' was doubtless sometimes used in that sense, 
but it was by no means its primary or ordinary one ; and in 
the whole of Pliny's letter there is not one syllable which 
warrants the belief that he suspected them of any crime beyond 
that of contumacy to the imperial will, in presuming to have 
a religion of their own, and to hold private assemblies, on 
which the laws of Rome looked with especial jealousy. He 
allows their entire blamelessness as to any other charge ; and 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 335 

it must be observed that this 'carmen to Christ as God' 
was reported to Pliny by men who had been Christians, who 
must have understood its real meaning, and had no reason 
for imputing to their former brethren so odious a crime as 
magic. 

But we dwell too long on this ; nor must we indulge our- 
selves in, we trust, amicable debate with Mr. Newman on 
historical ground, which we much prefer to the dry and barren 
sands of metaphysical or theologic discussion. For, we repeat, 
that the question is not what Christianity appeared to be to 
the hostile heathens, but what it was in the ordinary life and 
in the bosom of Christian families. If Mr. Newman's Mediaeval 
Christianity be a true development of the false idea — of the 
religion as it was erringly conceived or calumniously misrepre- 
sented by its adversaries — the conclusion would be destructive 
rather than in favour of its fidelity to the original and perfect 
Idea. 

II. The second test is Continuity of Principle. Here again 
we are lost in a wilderness of incomplete and inapplicable 
analogies, grammatical, political, dramatic. We have much 
which is acute, much which is fertile in invention, and original 
in language — much subtilized into fantastic distinctions, and 
loose in expression ; all, however, curiously illustrative of the 
state and temper of the author's mind. He is drawing the 
distinction between principles and doctrines. 'Personal re- 
sponsibility is a principle — the Being of God is a doctrine ; 
from that doctrine all theology has come in due course, whereas 
that principle is not clearer under the Gospel than a (qu. in) 
paradise, and depends not on belief in an Almighty Governor, 
but on conscience.' Surely Mr. Newman must mean the sense 
of personal responsibility; and the belief, if not of an Almighty 
Governor, of some Superior Power, must form part of that 
notion of personal responsibility, recognized by the conscience. 
Presently we read — ' Personal responsibility may be made a 
doctrinal basis, and develop into Arminianism and Pelagianism. 
Is personal responsibility, then, a dangerous doctrine ? 



336 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



In the next page we read — 

Again, religious investigation sometimes is conducted on the prin- 
ciple, that it is a duty 1 to follow and speak the truth ; ' which really 
means that it is no duty to fear error, or to consider what is safest, or to 
shrink from scattering doubts, or to regard the responsibility of mislead- 
ing ; and thus it terminates in heresy or infidelity, without any blame to 
religious investigation in itself. — P. 71. 

We turn the leaf, and find these words : — 

Hence, too, men may pass from infidelity to Eome, and from Eome 
to infidelity, from a conviction in both courses that there is no tangible 
intellectual position between the two. 

There is no intermediate position, then, for a man of under- 
standing, between the whole uncompromising inflexible the- 
ology of the Council of Trent and utter Infidelity ; the full 
creed of Pius IV. and the stern rejection of that of the 
Apostles ; we must £ deify ' the Virgin Mary or renounce Christ. 
Here are the Catechisms of Trent — there the Systeme de la 
Nature of Holbach — and the Leben Jesu of Strauss — or the 
works of those who accuse Strauss of some weak and lingering 
orthodoxy. Take your choice — cast in your lot ! ! This is the 
stern alternative to the intellect of an intellectual age. But 
on what principle does Mr. Newman proclaim this appalling 
declaration in the ears of the intellectual Protestants of 
England — of the descendants and religious heirs of Hooker, 
and Barrow, and Taylor? — in the ears of all Europe, where 
we will be bold to say that among acquiescing Eoman Catholics 
— among the philosophical writers who passively receive the 
general doctrines of their Church — there is anything but an 
absolute unreasoning faith in Eome. On what principle but 
that it is 4 a duty to follow and speak the truth ? ' And on 
this principle — which at one moment he espouses and at the 
next indignantly rejects — by his own showing what must be 
the issue with the great mass of European intellect ? What 
does history say ? That where there has not been an interven- 
ing Protestantism, or, if that word be so obnoxious, some 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHEISTIAN DOCTKINE. 337 



intermediate system of less unreasoning belief, a wide-spread 
and utter unbelief has been the sure result. What was the case 
in France ? — what among the upper orders in Spain ? — what in 
young Italy ? We speak plainly : if there be no Christianity 
but that of the fourteenth century — if there be no intellectual 
position but on the shifting quicksand of this Theory of 
Developments — c Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' 
If this be or become the creed of millions, where rests the 
appalling responsibility ? 

We turn to the application of the Second Test. We read at 
p. 319— 

Judaism did but develop, while it bore in mind its imperfection, and 
its subordination to a coming Messiah; and it became corrupt as soon 
and in proportion as it found itself self-sufficient, and rejected the 
Gospel. 

We would suggest that Judaism had developed itself to some 
considerable extent before the publication of the Gospel. 
There was a certain system of opinions, called, as we may deem 
more proper, Pharisaism or Eabbinism — a development of 
Judaism which, we are inclined to think, with the help of Mr. 
Newman's ingenuity, would bear every one of Mr. Newman's 
tests. It was of slow but continuous growth. It maintained 
within it the great idea of Judaism, the unity of Grod. It had 
an extraordinary power of assimilation, for it had moulded 
into itself perhaps early Palestinian, certainly Babylonian 
tenets — probably early Egyptian, certainly Alexandrian notions. 
It boasted of its early anticipation — it traced itself up to the 
Seventy Elders in the time of Moses — it rested on strange 
mutilated or mysticised quotations from the Law and the 
Prophets. The regular affiliation of its doctrines shows its 
logical sequence. It called itself the hedge of the law — a 
definition we recommend for Preservative Additions. As to 
its chronic continuance, it is the Eabbinism of the present 
day. Do we want further illustrations ? It had built up, out 
of a few suggestive hints in the books of the Scripture, an 

z 



338 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



hierarchy, and something approaching to a worship, of angels. 
It furnishes singularly enough in the later Apocryphal Books 
the text usually alleged in defence of Purgatory. It had its 
6 Fathers,' who were dignified by the name, and held the 
authority of Masters, and if they did not absolutely claim, were 
invested with something like, infallibility. Its temporal 
sovereignty had at least been at times superseded by a sacer- 
dotal supremacy, a papal high priest. It had a most prolific 
and systematic theology, afterwards embodied in the Mischna ; 
somewhat later it had something of a Grolden Legend in its 
Talmud. It had finally its mystic interpretation of Scripture, 
so rich as to form two schools. And yet we know who it was 
that commanded his disciples to beware of those who taught 
the traditions of men for the commandments of God ; who 
warned them to call no man master ; who, in the most awful 
tones which His benignant voice ever assumed, repeatedly 
denounced woe against the Lawyers and Pharisees, the teachers 
of developed Judaism : whose whole system of instruction 
might seem a most appalling admonition against binding- 
unnecessary burthens upon the minds and the consciences of 
men. 

This second test is illustrated by what we presume that we 
are to consider the continuous use of £ the Mystical Interpre- 
tation ; ' of this we have said as much as our space will allow . 
But the third illustration of this, as well as of the third test, 
the Supremacy of Faith, absolutely demands some, we fear too 
brief, examination. This, according to Mr. Newman, is the 
exclusive distinction of the Eoman Catholic Church — 4 on the 
other hand it has ever been the heretical principle to prefer 
Eeason to Faith.' This is a strange assertion against a form 
of Christianity, of which the vital principle (whether right or 
wrong) is Justification by Faith ; a principle carried to the 
very height of fanaticism in many of the Protestant bodies. 
Moreover, this objection is advanced in a book more essentially 
and intrinsically rationalising than any which we have read, 
excepting only the extreme of Grermanism. It is strange, 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 339 



indeed, how extremes may meet ! We would willingly refrain 
from the parallel, which forces itself upon us, of this Theory 
of Developments and the 4 Entwickelungs-theorie ' (literally, 
Development-theory) of the famous 6 Leben Jesu.' The ' Leben 
Jesu ' evolves or develops from the subjective Idea in the mind 
of man, with equal subtlety, with a sort of kindred calmness 
of style, and erudition as laborious, Christianity itself, the life 
of the Saviour, the whole of the New Testament. Strauss may 
thus appear to begin higher up than Mr. Newman. But Mr. 
Newman, by annulling the authority — as he inevitably does by 
impugning the early and universal acceptance — of the written 
word — by resting the divine origin of Christianity on tradition 
alone, or on something more dubious than tradition — abandons 
the whole field to the mythic expositor. Still further : admit, 
with Mr. Newman, so much which is clearly and almost 
avowedly mythic into Christianity — and ingenuity like his 
own will claim free scope to resolve the whole into a myth. 
Be this as it may, Mr. Newman's is unquestionably a book full 
of abstruse and subtle metaphysics, addressed exclusively to the 
Reason; a book avowedly written to justify a departure from 
one form of faith (once held in the sternest and most uncom- 
promising severity) to another form of the faith ; from faith in 
the doctrines of the Church of England to faith in the doc- 
trines of the Church of Eome. 

The question necessarily arises, What is the test of the 
Supremacy of Faith? Is it the number of articles in the 
Creed, or the more intense and unquestioning conviction of 
the more important of these articles ? Is it the quantity, not 
the quality, of the things believed ? Is it the blind passivity 
or the strenuous activity of the believing mind ? Is the rude 
Southern peasant, who fancies that the eyes in the image of 
his favourite saint move in their sockets, or that the Virgin 
extends her arms and smiles upon him ; whose belief keeps 
pace with the legendary invention of his priest or of his neigh- 
bourhood ; or the controversialist who writes himself up into a 
belief that he believes the most palpable fictions ; is either of 

z 2 



340 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



these, therefore, a more faithful Christian than he who believes 
a narrower creed, that which he derives from the Scripture 
alone, with as intense fervour ? We are constantly urged to 
look back with despairing envy to what have been called the 
4 ages of faith.' Now we venture to assert that the principle 
of faith was as strong in Luther (we take him merely as an 
example) as in any Pope that ever sat in the Vatican. His 
creed may have been true or false, perfect or imperfect, but in 
its defence he was as vehement, passionate, and even fanatical 
as Dominie or Loyola. Luther was as contemptuous of human 
reason as the most imperious dogmatist, or the most im- 
passioned mystic. Mr. Carlyle shall be heard in favour of the 
depth and reality of Cromwell's faith. What test will the 
enthusiasm, the fiery zeal, the undaunted and unwearied energy 
of one of these believers endure, which will not be borne by 
the other ? 4 I will fight for my faith,' so said the Crusader — 
and so said the soldier of (xustavus Adolphus. 4 I will suffer 
for my faith,' so said the Franciscan missionary in the desert, 
and so said the Primitive Quaker in the stocks, and the Came- 
ronian on the hills. 4 I will die for my faith,' so said Campian 
on the rack, and Eidley and Latimer at the stake. 4 Nay, 4 I 
will persecute for the faith,' said the Grand Inquisitor on his 
tribunal, and Laud in the Star Chamber. 6 1 will burn the 
heretic,' so said the Inquisitor of Thoulouse as he heaped 
hundreds into one furnace; and so, if he be but an Arian, 
must I, said the more timid Cranmer ; and 4 who will not, if 
he dare to deny the Lord's divinity ?' spake Calvin, and looked 
in stern satisfaction on the pile of Servetus. 

Let us turn from the crimes to the follies of faith. Is there 
no line between faith and credulity ? Is the faith which em- 
braces the Grolden Legend as well as the Grospel, therefore, 
superior to simple faith in the Grospel ? Look at that strange, 
eloquent, learned, rhapsodical book, the 4 Christliche Mystik ' of 
Grorres, where the most subtle Eationalism is wedded by the 
imagination to the most inconceivable credulity; where we 
defy the reader to tell us where physical causes end, and where 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 341 

supernatural ones begin; where Mesmerism (or something 
undistinguishable from Mesmerism) or Miracle is the agent in 
all the ecstatic visions, wonderful cures, and passionate devo- 
tions of the Middle Ages. Mr. Newman himself has limits 
to his faith ; he does not (as yet) believe in the false Decretals, 
or in the works of the pseudo-Dionysius. Mr. Newman is a 
traitor to the ' Supremacy of Faith '—a mere Eationalist in 
comparison with the Abbe Darboy, Professor of Theology in 
the Seminary of Langres, who has published a translation of 
the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, with a grave and 
learned preface, actually maintaining the authenticity of these 
books as the genuine remains of St. Paul's Athenian convert. 
Verily the Abbe Darboy puts this degenerate nineteenth 
century, Catholic as well as Protestant, to shame. May we 
venture one further inquiry ? Will Mr. Newman vouchsafe his 
presence at the next exhibition of the seamless coat of Treves, 
if, indeed, Bishop Arnoldi has courage to venture a second 
exhibition ? 

In sober earnestness, the great question— this solemn arbitra- 
ment between Faith and Eeason — requires to be examined with 
a more dispassionate judgement and larger philosophy than Mr. 
Newman has brought to bear upon it. The important distinc- 
tion in the sounder German philosophy between Vernunft (the 
perfect Eeason— we have no corresponding term) and Verstand, 
may be called in, as Dr. Arnold suggests, with some advantage. 
We have not forgotten Mr. Newman's University Sermons, 
which if in our judgement far from exhaustive, satisfactory, or 
conclusive, are suggestive of much deep and important thought, 
of much true if not complete philosophy. If we remember, he 
comes at last to the one test of faith, < its working by love.' 
It is the Christian disposition which embraces, warrants, puri- 
fies, and at the same time tries the faith. Would that on these 
terms Christendom could come to a truce! Let us all 
endeavour to become good Christians, Christians in love as in 
faith, and we shall approximate to truth far more nearly than 
by years of controversy. Though even here we fear that we 



342 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



shall hardly agree in our first principle. Mr. Newman's will 
be an ascetic, gloomy, self-torturing, monastic, though deeply 
devout Christianity ; ours an active, cheerful, intelligent, 
domestic, English, and therefore more practical, though it may 
be less imaginative or ceremonial faith. 

But, after all, this controversy, as it is really brought to issue 
in the present day, rests far below these abstruse inquiries into 
the legitimate province of Faith and of Eeason. Mr. Newman 
writes of Eeason, as of a slow and regular intellectual process ; 
a working out of truth by profound meditation, which few have 
the ability, still fewer the leisure, in this busy age, to pursue. 
But there is an intuitive reason, which we presume to think a 
competent judge in great part of the debate ; at least, we are 
sure that most men will be guided by its verdict. There is a 
homely quality, called common sense, especially strong in our 
practical Anglo-Saxon race. The vast mass of men endowed 
with this gift will persist in taking their Christianity from the 
New Testament rather than from the long range of Eccle- 
siastical History : they know that the New Testament is not 
merely the most authoritative, but likewise the oldest record 
of their faith ; and they will find it difficult to understand how 
doctrines, of which our Lord vouchsafes not the least hint, and 
of which the Apostles betrayed in all their writings not the 
slightest knowledge, can be essential to their salvation. They 
will be utterly perplexed with the notion that the Son of God 
made a revelation to mankind, a revelation of mercy and truth, 
and yet left that revelation to be completed (for every addition 
must either be an improvement, an elucidation, or an un- 
warranted excrescence) by man at the close of fourteen or 
fifteen centuries. If a new object of worship, seemingly 
altogether excluded not merely by the silence of the Scrip- 
ture, but by an apparently jealous reservation of divine 
honours to the Persons of the Holy Trinity, should have arisen 
five centuries after the death of Christ, and claim, if theoreti- 
cally subordinate, practically equal or superior honours ; if this 
common-sense Christian, when he reads of One Mediator 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 343 

between God and man, should discover an infinite multitude of 
intermediate Intercessors, at least, coming between him and the 
throne of grace, he will have almost an invincible repugnance 
to submit to an authority, in itself of very uncertain and ques- 
tionable date. 

None of the points at issue between English Protestantism 
and Eome seem to demand any painful or sustained effort of 
thought, any profound instruction in the science of logic, any 
laborious study of history, as far as the single question, whether 
they are Scriptural or not. On those, in whose hereditary 
creed they find no place, they can only be enforced by a very 
slow and very subtle process. How long has Mr. Newman, 
with all his tendencies and with all his powers, if Mr. Newman 
has honestly recorded the progress of his own opinions, been 
occupied in reasoning himself into new forms of belief? By 
what painful and laborious process has he come at length to 
these convictions? It has been by a total surrender of the 
Supremacy of Faith, by reasonings which, no doubt, they have 
thought unanswerable, but still, by close, deep, logical reason- 
ings (unless they will honestly admit that they have been 
influenced entirely by passion or temperament), that so many 
men, most of them young men, have given up their faith in 
Christianity as it came from the lips of our Lord and his 
Apostles, as it was taught them by their parents and instruc- 
tors, for the developed Christianity of later centuries. 

III. The third test is the Power of Assimilation ; we quote 
at once one of the definitions, and one of the illustrations of 
this process : — 

The idea never was that throve and lasted, yet, like mathematical 
truth, incorporated nothing from external sources. So far from the 
fact of such incorporation implying corruption, as is sometimes sup- 
posed, development implies incorporation. Mahometanism may be in 
external developments scarcely more than a compound of other theo- 
logies, yet no one would deny that there has been a living idea some- 
where in that religion, which has been so strong, so wide, so lasting a 
bond of union in the history of the world. Why it has not continued to 
develope after its first preaching, if this be the case, as it seems to be, 



344 NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



cannot be determined without a greater knowledge of that religion, and 
how far it is merely political, how far theological, than we commonly 
possess. — P. 75. 

Here again a wider knowledge of history would have furnished 
Mr. Newman with a strong analogical refutation of his own 
doctrines. Mahometanism has passed through almost the same 
stages of 'development' as Christianity; it has admitted 
mysticism, monasticism, cultivated Grecian, and anticipated 
scholastic philosophy. 

Bat who shall say that Haroun Alraschid, or Akbar, or the 
gorgeous and peaceful Caliphs of Cordova, are the legitimate 
representatives of the old warrior Ismaelite ? The idea of 
Mahometanism— there is one God and Mahomet is his Prophet 
—has lived through all these changes; but read the Koran, 
and then examine all that is known in Europe of Arabian 
letters and Arabian theology, and who will deny that the 
Wallabies are more true to the original faith of Mahomet ? 
We think that we could work out an instructive parallel 
between the developments of Christianity and of Mahometanism 
— but the reviewer 

^stuat infelix angnsto in limite. 

As into Christianity, so Orientalism worked its way at an 
early period into Mahometanism. Mahomet hated monkery. 
There is an old traditional proverb (quoted by Tholuck, 
< Sufismus,' p. 47), ' Be there no monasticism in Mahometanism.' 
Yet, not long after the Prophet's death, Mahometanism deve- 
loped into Monkery; and, ever since, the Islamite Anchorite 
of the Desert, the Dervise, and even the Coenobite affect the 
wildest asceticism, forswear the privilege, or renounce the duty, 
of the married state ; live as contemplative hermits, or as 
begging friars. So too the stern and austere Monotheism 
developed into a mystic Pantheism. Among the burners of 
the Alexandrian Library, a vast theology grew up. 7 The 

7 Compare a small volume, which throws more light on the history of Arabian 
philosophy than any European work with which we are acquainted, Essai sur les 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 345 



peculiar genius of the people is Aristotelian rather than Pla- 
tonic, yet even Platonism has found its votaries among them. 
We are inclined to think, that but for the hatred and constant 
antagonism of image-worshipping Christianity, their Iconoclasm 
might have been in danger. The arabesques in which they 
freely indulge seem longing, as it were, to trespass on animal, 
if not on human, forms.' Omar or Abubeker, we suspect, would 
have wielded his shattering mace without mercy in the halls of 
the Fatimites, or those of the Alhambra. 

The Dogmatic and Sacramental Principles presided, accord- 
ing to Mr. Newman, over the working of this third process. 
Under these principles grew up the theological science of 
Mediaeval Christianity ; principles, the first of which is dis- 
claimed by no description of Christians, though it may be as- 
serted by some in a less peremptory and more limited manner ; 
the latter is strongly maintained, at least by the Church of 
England, though it confines itself to strictly Scriptural sacra- 
ments. Here, however, we encounter one of the most extra- 
ordinary passages in this singular work : — 

Not in one principle or doctrine only, but in its whole system, 
Montanism is a remarkable anticipation or presage of developments 
which soon began to show themselves in the Church, though they were 
not perfected for centuries after. Its rigid maintenance of the original 
creed, yet its admission of a development, at least in the ritual, has just 
been instanced in the person of Tertullian. Equally Catholic in their 
principle, whether in fact or anticipation, were most of the other pecu- 
liarities of Montanism : its rigorous fasts, its visions, its commendation 
of celibacy and martyrdom, its contempt of temporal goods, its peni- 
tential discipline, and its centre of unity. The doctrinal determinations 
and the ecclesiastical usages of the middle ages are the true fulfilment 

ficoles philosophiqnes chez les Arabes, par Auguste Schmolders, Paris, 1842. 'La 
masse des pretendus philosophes est si grande, leurs ouvrages sont numeriquement 
si prodigieux, que toute la scolastique est bien pauvre en comparaison des Arabes.' 
■ — Introduction, p. 50. They have their Nominalists, Realists, Conceptualists, 
Mystics, Roscelins, Anselms, Abelards, Bonaventuras. Conceive the rude and 
straightforward fatalism of Mahomet thus developed. There is another curious 
analogy, which we must quote. These are the words of an Arabic writer : — ' Le 
seigneur des prophetes le tres-veridique nous a parle d'avance, lorsqu'il dit, " Mon 
eglise sera divisee en plus de soixante-dix sectes: il n'y en a qu'une qui sera sauvee, 
les autres iront a i'enfer;"or ce qu'il a predit, est arrive.' — P. 17. 



346 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



of its self-willed and abortive attempts at precipitating the growth of 
the Church. The favour shown to it for a while by Pope Victor is an 
evidence of its external resemblance to orthodoxy ; and the celebrated 
martyrs and saints in Africa, in the beginning of the third century, 
Perpetua and Felicitas, or at least their acts, betoken that same peculiar 
temper of religion, which, when cut off from the Church a few years 
afterwards, quickly degenerated into a heresy. — Pp. 350, 351. 

We cannot pause here : at the risk of prolixity we must pro- 
ceed : — 

These are specimens of the raw material, as it may be called, which, 
whether as found in individual Fathers within the pale of the Church, 
or in heretics external to it, she had the power, by means of the con- 
tinuity and firmness of her principles, to convert to her own uses. 
She alone has succeeded in thus rejecting evil without sacrificing the 
good, and in holding together in one things which in all other schools 
are incompatible. Gnostic or Platonic words are found in the inspired 
theology of St. John. Unitarian writers trace the doctrine of our 
Lord's divinity to the Platonists ; Gibbon the idea of the Incarnation to 
the Gnostics. The Gnostics too seem first to have systematically di- 
rected the intellect upon matters of faith ; and the very term ' Gnostic ' 
has been taken by Clement to express his perfect Christian. And, 
though ascetics existed from the beginning, the notion of a religion 
higher than the Christianity of the many, was first prominently brought 
forward by the Gnostics, Montanists, Novatians, and Manichees. And 
while the prophets of the Montanists prefigure the Church's doctors, 
and their inspiration her infallibility, and their revelations her deve- 
lopments, and the heresiarch himself is the unsightly anticipation of 
St. Francis, in Novatian again we discern the aspiration of nature after 
such creations of grace as St. Benedict or St. Bruno. And so the effort 
of Sabellius to complete the mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity failed : 
it became a heresy ; grace would not be constrained ; the course of 
thought could not be forced ; — at length it was realized in the true 
Unitarianism of St. Augustine. — Pp. 351, 352. 

So 4 Catholicism ' is, after all, but developed Montanism ! ! 
If this passage had occurred in the works of a German, or an 
English writer suspected of Germanising, what thunders of de- 
vout eloquence would have burst on his devoted head ! What 
is heresy in one century is sacred orthodoxy in another ! What 
is dark fanaticism without the Church is holy enthusiasm with- 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 347 



in ! Thus, in another passage, Mr. Newman asserts, plainly, 
broadly, without reserve : — 

The exercises of asceticism, which are so graceful in St. Anthony, 
so touching in St. Basil, and so awful in St. Germanus, do but become 
a melancholy and gloomy superstition in the most pious j^sons who 
are cut off from Catholic communion.— P. 451. 

But more wonderful still ! Not merely are the heretics the 
patterns and the prophets of orthodoxy, but the Fathers are 
more than the suppressors of undeveloped truths within the 
sanctuary of their intellects. Not merely do they keep the 
treasures of divine doctrine buried in the silence of their hearts, 
or betray them but in obscure and unconscious hints, though 
the salvation of mankind, if not absolutely dependent upon 
them, must at least be advanced by their full revelation— they 
are almost one and all heretics ! they not only withhold the 
truth, but hold what in others is damnable error ! ! ! — 

And thus, if in some cases they were even left in ignorance, the next 
generation of teachers completed their work, for the same unwearied 
anxious process of thought went on. St. Gregory Nyssen finishes the 
investigations of St. Athanasius ; St. Leo guards the polemical state- 
ments of St. Cyril. Clement may hold a purgatory, yet tend to consider 
all punishment purgatorial; St. Cyprian may hold the unsanctified 
state of heretics, but include in his doctrine a denial of their baptism ; 
St. Hippolytus may believe in the personal existence of the Word from 
eternity, yet speak confusedly on the eternity of his Sonship ; the 
Council of Antioch might put aside the Homousion, and the Council 
of Mcsea impose it; St. Hilary may believe in a purgatory, yet confine 
it to the day of judgement ; St. Athanasius and other Fathers may treat 
with almost supernatural exactness the doctrine of our Lord's Incar- 
nation, yet imply, as far as words go, that he was ignorant in his human 
nature ; the Athanasian Creed may admit the illustration of soul and 
body, and later Fathers discountenance it ; St. Augustine might first be 
opposed to the employment of force in religion, and then acquiesce in 
it. Prayers for the faithful departed may be found in the early liturgies, 
yet with an indistinctness which included St. Mary and the Martyrs in 
the same rank with the imperfect Christian whose sins were as yet un- 
expiated ; and succeeding times might keep what was exact, and supply 
what was deficient. Aristotle might be reprobated by certain early 
Fathers, yet furnish the phraseology for theological definitions after- 



348 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



wards. And in a different subject-matter, St. Isidore and others might 
be suspicious of the decoration of churches; St. Paulinus and St. 
Helena advance it. — Pp. 353, 354. 

Is any form of Christianity, we solemnly demand, to be ad- 
vanced by this insult to the moral sense of man ? 

IV. The fourth test of faithful development is Early Antici- 
pation. By this process, out of some ambiguous or insulated 
text grows some great doctrine, which afterwards expands and 
ramifies into a system or family of doctrines, for all which the 
same authority is claimed ; and which become equally integral 
parts of ' Catholic ' theology. The author, we must acknow- 
ledge, is extremely modest in his illustrations of this test. 
His early anticipations rarely aspire to the most faint sugges- 
tion in Scripture ; their first actual and mostly feeble develop- 
ment rises no higher than the third century. The resurrection 
of the body is unquestionably a Scriptural doctrine ; though in 
St. Paul the well-known distinction between the 'vile and 
corruptible bodies' which we bear into the grave, and the 
6 glorious and incorruptible bodies ' with which the faithful 
are to be 4 clothed upon ' in their immortality, might seem 
expressly intended to guard against the coarser and more grossly 
materialising abuse of that great tenet. But the resurrection 
of the body was not merely an early anticipation of the greater 
care and reverence paid to the bodies of the dead, by the 
Christians, than by the Jews or Pagans, who looked upon them 
as unclean ; but also of the worship of relics ! — a worship by 
which practically a kind of magical and tutelary power was 
ascribed to the smallest portion of the 6 vile ' body of any saint 
or martyr. Among the 6 early anticipations ' of the worship of 
the saints is the doubtful Latin of a canon of the Council of 
Illiberis (Elvira in Spain) towards the beginning of the fourth 
century, in which painted images are forbidden on the walls of 
churches, c lest what is worshipped or adored be painted on the 
walls.' As pictures of saints came under this prohibition, 
therefore they were then adored ! The worship of angels rests 
solely on a contested passage in Justin Martyr. So the merit 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 349 

of virginity is first developed in a rhapsodical work, the 6 Con- 
vivium Virginum,' by St. Methodius. Of the worship of the 
"Virgin we shall speak hereafter. 

Here however we must touch on one point which appears to 
us of the highest importance, but which is altogether unnoticed 
in the work before us. Not merely do we conceive that the 
absolute silence of the Scriptures on any Christian doctrine is 
in itself prohibitory ; but there is a kind of silence even more 
significant and expressive. Where, we mean, if the doctrine 
had been in the mind of the inspired writer, it is inconceivable 
that he should have suppressed it; where the < development 3 
was clearly wanting to fill up his precept ; where he could not 
have avoided (without some purpose to mislead) the early 
anticipation of the future tenet, which was necessary to explain 
the revelation; where he must have been almost compelled to 
proceed, if such were the legitimate conclusion, by < logical 
sequence.' There are passages in Holy Writ absolutely pro- 
hibitory of certain doctrines by < early anticipation,'— as where 
in the Book of Eevelations the angel once and again solemnly 
repels the worship of St. John. But according to Mr. Newman, 
the doctrine of post-baptismal sin was early anticipated, and 
led by ' logical sequence ' to Penance and to Purgatory. Now 
the main support of this doctrine (if in this peremptory form 
it rest at all on the Scripture) is contained in the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, x. 26 to 31. More sober interpreters refer this 
passage to total apostasy from Christianity. But suppose it to 
allude to post-baptismal sin, and purgatory to be a sort of 
mitigation or remedy left to the Church instead of the < certain 
fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation which 
shall devour the adversaries,'— would the inspired writer have 
withheld the knowledge of this intermediate place had he 
possessed it? So throughout St. Paul's epistles, addressed 
without exception to churches of baptized Christians. He re- 
proves their errors, he rebukes their sins, but where does he 
suggest, where does he hint at any other means for the remission 
of sins, but through the fixed and unalterable law of repentance 



350 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



and faith in Christ during this life ? 6 It is appointed unto 
every man to die, and after that the judgement.' Why is the 
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews silent as to ages of further 
probation or purification ? 

Early anticipation is not merely the test of true but of false 
development. Luther's doctrine of private judgement was an 
anticipation of that 4 simple heresy or infidelity,' which. Luther- 
anism, according to Mr. Newman, has by this time universally 
become. Luther's rejection of the Epistle of St. James was 
an augury as well as the prolific parent of all Rationalism. 
So Calvinism has become Socinianism. The latter is true as a 
fact ; but, bear witness the death of Servetus, from a very 
different cause. It is the violent revulsion from that dark 
creed ; the revolting against its obscuration or utter effacement 
of the attribute of benevolence from the Godhead ; it is this 
which has thrown men back on a purely moral system : a 
system in which the benevolence of Grod will not demand even 
the propitiation of the Redeemer. 

But we must hazard a few observations on this regular 
generation and descent of infidelity, of which it seems to be a 
standing argument, that all the sin is to be borne by Protes- 
tantism. We think it would be but common prudence for 
each party to hesitate before they throw the first stone. Has 
Infidelity been the prolific and spontaneous growth of Protes- 
tantism alone? Rationalism has sprung up in Lutheran 
Germany, but has not something more arisen in Roman 
Catholic countries ? Vanini, it is true, was burned in Italy, 
and our English Deists were not. Bolingbroke was a minister 
in England ; so was Choiseul (to say nothing of Cardinal 
Dubois) in France. Frederick II. sate on a Protestant throne 
but we think that we could find contemporary monarchs in 
Romish Europe, not quite perhaps such clever unbelievers, but 
at least no better Christians. If Roman Catholicism has a 
right to disclaim Voltaire and Helvetius and D'Holbach, 
Lutheranism may protest against being answerable for Strauss 
or Bruno Bauer. According to an anecdote in Diderot's 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 351 

Memoirs, mass was regularly celebrated at Grrandval, the 
chateau of the Baron D'Holbach. Infidelity may have glided 
down in one case by more easy steps — in the other it was driven, 
for driven it was, to a more violent leap. In one word, was 
it a Protestant nation which solemnly, publicly, deliberately 
abrogated Christianity ; which dethroned, as far as it could, 
Grod and his Christ, from the sovereignty of the universe ? 

Of all historical questions the gravest is, how far the infidelity, 
or at least the religious indifference, which was almost univer- 
sally dominant throughout the highest and higher orders of 
Christian Europe during the last century, Eoman Catholic as 
well as Protestant, is to be ascribed to the onward movement, 
caused not by the Reformation (for we hold Luther and Calvin 
to have been but instruments, the real Reformers were Faust 
and Grutenberg), or rather to the obstinate, and at first success- 
ful determination to maintain Mediaeval Christianity with all 
its dogmas, usages, and sacerdotal power, stereotyped (as we 
have somewhere recently read) in the decrees of Trent and the 
creed of Pope Pius. But more of this before we close. 

V. On the fifth test, Logical Sequence, we shall be extremely 
brief. Mr. Newman has adduced under other heads most of the 
illustrations which he brings forward under this. Of all guides 
to practical, or even speculative truth, none must be watched 
with greater jealousy than 6 logical sequence.' The world is a 
harmony of conflicting laws, life a balance of contending powers, 
the mind the concord of opposing faculties ; religion itself a 
reconcilement of antagonistic truths. No principle followed 
out to its extreme conclusions, without regard to others, but 
will end in danger or abuse. Even our noblest dispositions 
must be mutually checked, and tempered, and modified, and 
brought into unison. Government becomes by rigid logical 
sequence despotism. The tyrant's irrefragable sorites, from the 
sanctity which 4 hedges in a king,' leads him to cut off the 
heads of all, by whom by the remotest possibility that sanctity 
may be violated. So grant the premises of liberty, and stop 
short if you can (without introducing any extraneous consider- 



352 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



ation) of anarchy. The Jacobin sorites led as straight to the 
guillotine. Give Bellarmine his first truths, and admit no 
others, he is irrefragable ; but do the same to Barclay the 
Quaker, and he is equally so. Build up a monarchy, and limit 
it by no counterbalance, and where ends its power. Grant to 
Milton two words in St. Peter's epistle, and let him sternly 
advance, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, he 
stands a solitary worshipper in communion with no living 
Christian. Follow out the Polytheism of Mediaeval Christianity, 
and you end in Pantheism. Follow out Hegelism, and, the 
other way round, you land on the same shore. 

VI. We have arrived at the sixth test; the very title of 
which might appal one less infatuated by a preconceived and 
predetermined system. It is Preservative Additions. Additions, 
no longer developments of admitted truths, or of traditions as 
declaring themselves of apostolic descent, and as claiming co- 
ordinate authority with apostolic Scripture ; but avowed, osten- 
tatious additions — additions framed with the daring purpose of 
protecting God's truth, but demanding at the same time the 
same submissive homage with that truth ! 

No doctrine of his new creed seems to have seized on the 
imagination of Mr. Newman so strongly as the worship of the 
Virgin Mary. On this subject his cool and logical language 
kindles into lyrical rapture. He is no longer the subtle school- 
man ; he is the fervent hymnologist. Saint Teresa and Thomas 
Aquinas are met together. 

Whether from the natural conviction that this is the tenet 
of Medievalism, which it will be most difficult to force back 
into the creed of England ; which our biblical religious faith 
will reject with the most obstinate aversion ; which our un- 
poetic and unsesthetic (may we venture the word ?) spirituality 
will still brand by the unsubmissive name of Mariolatry ; or, 
from the complete possession which it seems to have obtained 
of his own mind, Mr. Newman urges this doctrine even with 
more than his wonted subtlety, labours at it with unwearied 
zeal, and recurs to it again and again. It is the favourite illus- 



Essay VI.]' DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 



353 



tration of three of his tests of legitimate development ; it was 
foreshown by the prophetic glance of 4 early anticipation ;' it is 
drawn out by the iron chain of 6 logical sequence ; ' it is the 
grand 4 preservative addition' which guards the precious treasure 
of the Lord's divinity. We have reserved the subject for our 
respectful examination. 

The 4 early anticipations ' of that worship are singularly few 
and indistinct. 4 Little is told us in Scripture concerning the 
Blessed Virgin ' — so commenced Mr. Newman's sermon at 
Oxford in 1843, in which he first announced his theory of de- 
velopments. As is well known, 4 they (the special prerogatives 
of St. Mary, the Virgo Virginum) were not fully recognized in 
the Catholic ritual till a late date ; but they were not a new 
theory to the Church, or strange to her earlier teachers.' We 
listened in reverential anxiety for these prophetic voices. Ac- 
cording to this theory it was the deep predestined design of 
Infinite Wisdom to raise the Virgin Mary to an object of divine 
worship ; the design was her deification — (it is Mr. Newman's 
word, and runs in large distinct capitals along several pages — 
whether to warn or to startle the English mind we presume 
not to say) ; — and yet of the four Evangelists but one, St. 
Luke, is inspired by the Holy Grhost, or urged by his own pre- 
scient sense of her divinity, to record the brief and simple 
words of the angelic salutation, Hail, highly favoured ! — x a " L P s > 
KzyapiKn^kvr]. — Let us suppose that word expressive of the 
utmost fulness of divine grace, — 4 The Lord is with thee, 
blessed art thou among women ' — svXoy^fisvri av sv <yvvaij;lv. 
What Christian heart will think that it can adequately con- 
ceive the blessedness of her who was the mother of Jesus, the 
mother of the Son of Grod — her blessedness among, her blessed- 
ness high above, all women f Who will deny himself the 
fond belief, that beauty, virginal beauty and maternal beauty, 
worked outward from the inward sanctity into the lineaments 
and expression of that countenance ? — who will refuse to gaze 
on the Madonnas of Kaffaelle, and not surrender himself in un- 
reasoning wonder to their truth as to their surpassing loveli- 

A A 



354 

9 



NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. 



ness I Still, of more than that blessedness, or even of that 
blessedness, not one further word is betrayed by any one of the 
Evangelists. On the contrary, there is a careful seclusion, as 
it were, of the Virgin Mother in her humble, in (if we may so 
say) her human sphere. So far from having any active part in 
the redemption, she seems as much lost in wonder as the rest 
at the gradual expansion of the Son of Man into the manifest 
Son of Grod. The wonderful things which she had seen, and 
had kept and pondered in her heart, expound not even to 
herself the marvellous mystery. 6 Wist ye not that I must 
be about my Father's business,' seems to her, as to others, 
incomprehensible. How exquisite and how true (we write 
with reference to the mythic theory of the New Testament), 
the blending of maternal tenderness and reverential awe 
in all the intercourse of the mother and the Divine Son ; and 
how completely, in his own language and in his acts, does He 
seem to stand forth alone and unapproachable, while she is but 
one, and not the most prominent, of the listening and faithful 
disciples ! But we must not dwell on this. After the Lord's 
death, the Acts of some of his Apostles are recorded. Their 
Letters, which at least dwell on all the more important parts of 
Christian doctrine, are before us. Of the later life of the 
Virgin not one word ; and so deeply latent in their hearts is 
this, which yet is to become a chief— we had almost said the 
ch i e f _ truth of Christian doctrine, that not one word, one 
incidental expression, drops from them. At length, in the 
obscure and mystic Apocalypse is discovered, or supposed to be 
discovered, the first ' early anticipation.' By a fanciful system 
of interpretation— wild, we venture to say, as the wildest of 
Protestant applications of that dark book— the Virgin Mary is 
found in the woman, in the 12th chapter, with whom the 
dragon was wroth, and against whose head he made war. This 
is moulded up with the prediction in the beginning of the book 
of Genesis. All the analogy of prophetic language would 
certainly lead us to suppose this woman to typify the Church ; 
but we enter not on the dream-land of Apocalyptic interpreta- 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 



355 



tion. This application however, we believe, was never thought 
of (we write with diffidence on this point) before the full 
establishment of the worship of the Virgin after the Nestorian 
controversy in the sixth century. Once suggested, it was too 
acceptable to the general ear not at once to become the popular 
belief; and found its expression in the beautiful verses of 
Petrarch : — 

Vergine Bella, che di Sol vestita, 
Coronata di stelle, al Sommo Sole 
Piacesti si, ch' in te suo lume n' ascose. 

Poetry and art — and with some poetry and art are the true 
theology — seized the captivating tradition ; it was embodied in 
the symbolism of mediaeval religion, and from such minds can 
sober reason hope to exorcise such powerful possessing spirits ? 

Here, however, proceeds Mr. Newman, we are not so much 
concerned to interpret Scripture as to examine the Fathers. 
The £ early anticipations ' of the Fathers are certain rhetorical 
figures of speech in which the obedience of the Virgin is con- 
trasted with the disobedience of Eve. We are compelled to 
decline the critical examination of these three or four passages, 
of which those from Justin and Tertullian have no bearing on 
the worship of the Virgin : the one extraordinary expression of 
Irenseus, in which the Virgin bears in relation to Eve the title 
assigned to the Holy Grhost in relation to true Christians, we 
must persist in describing as a figure of speech, used by a writer 
of very indifferent style. 

Besides these we have two visions, one of Gregory Thau- 
maturgus, one which even Mr. Newman will not avouch : and 
here close the ' anticipations ' of the three first centuries — 
an image in the Apocalypse, violently wrested from its most 
obvious signification, three metaphorical passages, and two 
dreams. 

In both these instances (the dreams) the Blessed Virgin appears 
especially in that character of Patroness or Paraclete which St. Irenseus 
and other Fathers describe, and which the Mediaeval Church exhibits 
— a loving Mother with Christ. 

a a 2 



356 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



Now, all that the Blessed Virgin does in the first vision is to 
bid John the Evangelist disclose to the young man -a complete 
formulary of 'the mystery of godliness.' Upon which the 
Evangelist, still in the dream, expresses his willingness to 
accede to the wishes of the Mother of God, and accordingly 
recites a full and perfect creed. And all this dream at last 
rests on the authority of a panegyric of the Wonder-worker, 
written a century after. 

But, after all, the unconscious parent of the deification of 
the Virgin is Arianism ! Had the ungodly Arians never afflic- 
ted the Church, the Virgin might have remained in modest 
subordination, and still have dwelt secluded from divine 
honours : — 

There was one other subject on which the Arian controversy had a 
more intimate, though not an immediate, influence. Its tendency to 
give a new interpretation to the texts which speak of our Lord's subor- 
dination, has already been noticed ; such as admitted of it were hence- 
forth explained more prominently of His manhood than of His Economy 
or His Sonship. But there were other texts which did not admit of 
this interpretation, but which, without ceasing to belong to Him, might 
Feem more directly applicable to a creature than to the Creator. He 
indeed was really the ' Wisdom in whom the Father eternally delighted,' 
yet it would be but natural if, under the circumstances of Arian mis- 
belief, theologians looked out for other than the Eternal Son to be 
the immediate object of such descriptions. And thus the controversy 
opened a question which it did not settle. It discovered a new sphere, 
if we may so speak, in the realms of light, to which the Church had not 
yet assigned its inhabitant. Arianism had admitted that our Lord was, 
both the God of the Evangelical covenant and the actual Creator of 
the Universe ; but even this was not enough, because it did not 
confess Him to be the One, Everlasting, Infinite, Supreme Being, but 
to be made by Him. It was not enough with that heresy to proclaim 
Him to be begotten ineffably before all worlds; not enough to place 
Him high above all creatures as the type of all the works of God's 
hands ; not enough to make Him the Lord of His Saints, the Mediator 
between God and man, the Object of W orship, the Image of the Father; 
not enough, because it was not all, and between all, and anything short 
of all,— there was an infinite interval. The highest of creatures is 
levelled with the lowest in comparison of the One Creator Himself. 
That is, the Nicene Council recognized the eventful principle, that, 
while we believe and profess any being to be a creature, such a being 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 357 

is really no God to us, though honoured by us with whatever high 
titles and with whatever homage. Arius or Asterius did all but confess 
that Christ was the Almighty ; they said much more than St. Bernard 
or St. Alphonso have since said of St. Mary ; yet they left him a 
creature and were found wanting. Thus there was ' a wonder in heaven ; ' 
a throne was seen, far above all created powers, mediatorial, intercessory ; 
a title archetypal ; a crown bright as the morning star ; a glory issuing 
from the Eternal Throne ; robes pure as the heavens ; and a sceptre 
over all ; and who was the predestined heir of that Majesty ? Who 
was that Wisdom, and what was her name, ' the Mother of fair love, 
and fear, and holy hope,' 1 exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and a 
rose-plant in Jericho,' ' created from the beginning before the world ' 
in God's counsels, and < in Jerusalem was her power ? ' The vision is 
found in the Apocalypse, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon 
under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. The votaries 
of Mary do not exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son 
came up to it. The Church of Eome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism 
is orthodoxy.— Pp. 404-406. 

Not the least curious part of this extraordinary passage is its 
coincidence with one in a work which Mr. Newman appears to 
have read, but whose principles of development arrive at very 
different conclusions from those of Mr. Newman :— 

It is possible that the controversies about the Trinity and the divine 
nature of Christ tended indirectly to the promotion of this worship of 
the Virgin, of angels, of saints, and martyrs. The great object of the 
victorious, to a certain extent, of both parties was the closest approxi- 
mation, in one sense the identification, of the Saviour with the unseen 
and incomprehensible Deity. Though the human nature of Christ was 
as strenuously asserted in theory, it was not dwelt upon with the same 
earnestness and constancy as his divine. To magnify— to purify this 
from all earthly leaven— was the object of all eloquence. Theologic 
disputes on this point withdrew or diverted the attention from the 
life of Christ, as simply related in the Gospels. Christ became the 
object of a remoter, a more awful adoration. The mind began, there- 
fore, to seek out, or eagerly to seize, some other more material beings, 
in closer alliance with human sympathies. The constant propensity of 
man to humanize his Deity, checked, as it were, by the receding ma- 
jesty of the Saviour, readily clung with its devotion to humbler objects. 
The weak wing of the common and unenlightened mind could not soar 
to the unapproachable light in Avhich Christ dwelt with the Father ; it 
dropped to the earth, and bowed itself down before some less myste- 
rious and infinite object of veneration. In theory it was always a dia- 



358 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



tinct and inferior kind of worship; bnt the feelings, especially impas- 
sioned devotion, know no logic : they pause not ; it would chill them to 
death if they were to pause for these fine and subtle distinctions. The 
gentle ascent by which admiration, reverence, gratitude and love 
swelled up to awe, to veneration, to worship — both as regards the feel- 
ings of the individual and the general sentiment— was imperceptible. 
Men passed from rational respect for the remains of the dead — the 
communion of holy thought and emotion which might connect the de- 
parted saint with his brethren in the flesh — to the superstitious venera- 
tion of relics, and the deification of mortal men; by so easy a transition 
that they never discovered the precise point at which they transgressed 
the unmarked and un watched boundary. — Milman's Hist, of Christianity, 
vol. iii. p. 339. 

It was to fill up this chasm, then, caused by this honourable 
relegation of the Saviour to a height inaccessible to human 
devotion, that a new and more humanitarian worship became 
necessary. But even suppose such a necessity, grant that this 
condescension of the Church to her weak and perplexed dis- 
ciples was a wise indulgence ; is this, if you will, admirable ex- 
pedient to be a perpetual law of Christianity ? Is this creature- 
worship (take it in its loftiest sense) to be for ever interposed — 
and by all Christians in every state of intelligence — between 
the soul of man and his one Redeemer ? Is Christ never to 
descend again, and to resume his direct communion with his 
own ? Is all mankind to be kept without in the vestibule, and 
never be allowed to approach, even in thought, to the Holy of 
Holies ? 

We deny not, we dissemble not the justice of Mr. Newman's 
animadversions on what we with him should call vulgar Pro- 
testantism, (he would once have called it ' popular ' Protest- 
antism,) but which he now charges on the most spiritual and 
enlightened, as well as on the lowest and most fanatic Protest- 
antism : — 

It must be asked, whether the character of Protestant devotion 
towards our Lord has been that of worship at all ; and not rather such 
as we pay to an excellent human being, that is, no higher devotion than 
that which Catholics pay to St. Mary, differing from it, however, in 
being familiar, rude, and earthly. Carnal minds will ever create a 



EssiY VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTKINE. 359 

carnal worship for themselves; and to forbid them the service of the 
Saints wiU have no tendency to teach them the worship of God.- 
P. 438. 

In the fear, then, lest coarse minds should worship coarsely, 
must the attempt never be made to spiritualize and purify their 
worship V Are we for ever to give them that to worship which 
God has not commanded, or rather which, by the whole jealous 
Triunism of the New Testament, he seems solemnly, earnestly, 
awfully to interdict ? We know who has said ' God is a spirit, 
and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and m 
truth ' Must those who aspire to fulfil-some of whom nobly, 
we believe, succeed in fulfilling, the Lord's high commands- 
must they be forced and bound, down by the canons and the 
creed of an inflexible and unrelenting Church to the common 
level ^ 

' But is the worship of the Saints, or even the worship of the 
Virgin Mary, always so unfamiliar, so refined, so heavenly ? It 
is easy for a mind of Mr. Newman's religious delicacy, or poetic 
apprehensiveness-it is easy for men of fine taste, the born 
mental aristocracy of Romanism (like the author, for instance, 
of the ' Mores Catholic!'), to cull out all that is pure, touching, 
gentle, and venerable from antiquity in Medieval Christianity, 
and repudiate, or studiously, skilfully, or at least really con- 
ceal all which is gross, material, and grovelling. Nor shal 
anything tempt us to wound the feelings of any high-minded 
Roman Catholic by an ungenerous disclosure of the coarseness 
or the wild Antinomianism, to say nothing of the debasing 
superstitions of their popular religion. But the very purest 
feeling to which the worship of the Virgin appealed, was it not, 
exquisite though it be, earthly f What was it in Jure matm 
imperafilio-or where less peremptory language implies the 
more modest maternal influence ? But dare we therefore take 
up into heaven these feelings, though perhaps the most 
heavenly upon the earth ; and intrude them, in their plain and 
positive significance, unveiled by figurative language, into the 
region of pure spirit? Is the metaphoric phrase, condescend- 



360 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. 

ingly adopted in regard to our humbler nature, to be daringly 
exalted into that of transcendental beings ? 

We return to the general question of Preservative Additions. 
As regards most Christians without the pale of Eome, the 
admission that these doctrines or usages are 4 additions ' to the 
creed revealed by our Lord and his Apostles, to the Sacraments 
and rites of direct divine institution, will appear an absolute 
abandonment of all the ground hitherto most perseveringly 
maintained by Eoman controversialists. 

To those of more moderate and inquiring minds there cannot 
but appear something of mistrust in the strength of a citadel 
which must be defended by outworks, the gradual and slow 
surrender of which may delay the attack upon the great castle- 
keep. The fact that 'preservative additions' are thought 
necessary, or even useful, looks as if we did not think our 
main position absolutely impregnable. Infidelity is so strong 
that we have, in modern phrase, some instalments with which 
we may for a time put off its importunate demands. It is 
only by paying Danegelt of our superfluous treasures that we 
are to avert for a season the inevitable victory of unbelief. 

But suppose that 6 base counsel ' has not thus been taken of 
our fears. There is one important point which has not alto- 
gether escaped Mr. Newman's observation — that these preserva- 
tive additions have an invariable tendency to usurp more than 
their proper place : their development knows not where to cease. 
The splendid parasitical plant, if it does not choke the life of 
the tree, hides it altogether by its overtopping luxuriance, by 
its rich and gorgeous clusters. Mr. Newman has attempted to 
meet the objection, that the cultus of the Virgin Mary obscures 
the divine glory of her Son, by showing that His worship has a 
special province in the ritual of Eome ; and that, in some later 
books of devotion, especially the < Spiritual Exercises ' of Loyola, 
the Virgin holds a secondary and intermediate place. No doubt 
the wonderful sagacity of the founders of the Jesuit order had 
seen that Mediaeval Christianity must condescend to accommo- 
date itself in some degree to the advanced state of the human 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 361 

mind. The Virgin Mary must recede, the Redeemer be brought 
forward again as an object of Roman adoration, or all the world 
would seek Him in the Churches of the Protestants. But how 
will what remains of this < cultus ' of the Virgin, even making 
the largest concessions to Mr. Newman, ever be brought into 
keeping with a system of Christianity of which the groundwork 
is the New Testament ? 

We are persuaded that the New Testament is not merely the 
sole authority for the eternal and immutable great Christian 
truths, as they were revealed by our Lord and his Apostles and 
received in the first ages, but for their relative importance in 
the scheme of salvation. All is an exquisite and finished unison. 
Strike one chord too strongly, dwell too long on one note, and 
you destroy the harmony. All religious error (we emphatically 
repeat, religious error) is an exaggeration of some Christian 
truth, with a necessary depression or obscuration of other 
Christian truths. Calvinism is an exaggeration of God's sove- 
reignty, to the utter extinction of human free will ; Unita- 
rianism is an exaggeration of the unity of God ; in its Socinian 
form an exaggeration of the moral to the depression of the 
mysterious, we may say, perhaps, the transcendental element. 
So Mediaeval Christianity is a gradual exaggeration of many 
true principles ; it is an undue elevation of that which is mu- 
table above that which is eternal; of that which is subordinate 
above that which is primal and essential ; of that which is 
accessory and in some degree foreign, obscure, doubtful— at 
l eas t_for that which is the everlasting Gospel ; of form above 
spirit, of that which shall pass away above that which shall 
never pass away. 

Granting, for instance, that the most profound reverence 
would be inferentially enjoined by the simple fact, that the 
Virgin was so honoured of God as to become the mother of His 
incarnate Son. Elevate that reverence into adoration, and will 
it any longer retain any due proportion ? Is it possible that 
two worships can be thus coincident, and the one not become 
dominant over the other, in proportion to the popular feeling, 



362 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



and the manifest, the visible effect watched and fostered, 
perhaps at first from pure devotional feelings, by an ignorant 
priesthood ? The Marian Psalter, and the Marian Te Deum ! 
— are these subordinate forms of worship ? Let Mr. Newman 
look back to the lives of some of the Saints : works in which he 
is profoundly — would that we might say dispassionately — read. 
We, too, have ventured into such subjects, and challenge him 
to meet us in that field. Let him take the Life of St. Dominic. 
Throughout that biography how much relates to our Lord, how 
much to the Virgin ? Of her is every vision— to her, or through 
her, is every prayer ; through her influence every good deed is 
done, every miracle wrought : passages are everywhere found 
some of which we read with an absolute shudder. When 
Heaven opens, what is disclosed ? Saints of all orders surround- 
ing the celestial courts — but not one Dominican : when, lo ! 
under the robe of the Virgin, countless multitudes of Dominican 
saints ! And this is the staple doctrine in every older life of 
the founder of the order of Friar Preachers. Mr. Newman has 
quoted Segneri, once the most popular preacher in Italy — an 
author with whom we are not unacquainted. We turn to his 
sermon on the Annunciation : — 6 Mensura privilegiorum Virginis 
est (udite il Suarez, benche si circonspetto, si cauto in ogni 
sua voce). Mensura privilegiorum Virginis est Poientia Dei. 
Potentia Dei, si, si. Potentia Dei, Potentia Dei — che ne state 
a cercar di piu ? Ma io qui si che mi perdo. Conciossiache, 
che gran misura non e mai questa, Uditori ? L'Onnipotenza 
divina ? Non e ella misura illimitatissima ? senza eccettione ? 
senza termine ? senza fine ?' 

VII. The seventh and last test of fidelity in development is 
Chronic Continuance. On this point Mr. Newman's tone 
kindles to deep— as it seems to himself, no doubt — triumphant 
eloquence. He would appal all adversaries into silence by the 
august phenomenon of the duration of the Eoman Church, 
with all its immutable dogmas, its inflexible discipline, its 
progressive developments, all tending to this absolute and 
unalterable perfection. Now, is this chronic continuance of 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 363 



itself an unanswerable evidence of the divinity of any religious 
system ? Judaism exists— Buddhism exists— Brahmanism exists 
— Mahometanism exists. But here the question is, Whether it is 
the Christianity, or the Eomanism contra-distinguished from 
Christianity — which has endured all the fierce encounters of 
successive ages ? The very errors of the latter, as we have said, 
may have powerfully contributed to its duration by its com- 
pulsory or spontaneous accommodation to the spirit of each 
succeeding age. But in Mr. Newman's theory — from the dura- 
tion, at least, of developed Christianity much must be struck off 
—from the supremacy of the Pope five centuries at the begin- 
ning ; from the worship of the Virgin, five ; from Transub- 
stantiation, eight. 

If we revert to Mr. Newman's own words, this chronic conti- 
nuance has been strikingly intermittent. In the fifth and sixth 
centuries (a singular argument for Catholic unity and per- 
petuity) he has given a melancholy description of Catholicism 
driven almost from the face of the earth. East and West, 
which had already been almost Arian, were now distracted by 
every kind of sect and division. In those days things stood 
worse with Catholicism than even in our degenerate age. This 
so-called Catholicism Mr. Newman describes as a form of 
Christianity 

such, that it extends throughout the world, though with varying 
measures of prominence or prosperity in separate places; — that it lies 
under the power of sovereigns and magistrates, in different ways alien 
to its faith ;— that flourishing nations and great empires, professing or 
tolerating the Christian name, lie over against it as antagonists ; — that 
schools of philosophy and learning are supporting theories, and follow- 
ing out conclusions, hostile to it, and establishing an exegetical system 
subversive of its Scriptures ;— that it has lost whole churches by schism, 
and is now opposed by powerful communions once part of itself; — that 
it has been altogether or almost driven from some countries ;— that in 
others its line of teachers is overlaid, its flocks oppressed, its churches 
occupied, its property held by what may be called a duplicate succession 
— that in others its members are degenerate and corrupt, and surpassed 
in conscientiousness and in virtue, as in gifts of intellect, by the very 
heretics whom it condemns ; — that heresies are rife and bishops negli- 
gent within its own pale.' — P. 316. 



3G4 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



In past ages of Catholicism, as now, according to Mr. New- 
man, its only conservative hope was the See of Rome. Baronius 
of old raised an argument for the perpetuity of the Papal power, 
from its wonderful revival after its period of debasement and 
degradation, after the acknowledged irregularities of election, 
and all the wickednesses and atrocities of the ninth and tenth 
centuries, when it was won by the sword, or bought and sold 
by prostitutes ! Mr. Newman would argue in the same way 
the legitimate development of the Papacy from its triumph 
over the confusions of those disastrous times. We scruple not 
to express thus far our perfect agreement with Mr. Newman. 
From the sixth century to the fourteenth the Papal power was 
the great conservator of Christianity, of the best Christianity 
perhaps which those ages could receive ; and it was of inesti- 
mable benefit to European civilization. There are periods in 
human history when despotism, temporal or spiritual, seems 
necessary or inevitable for the maintenance of social order. In 
those times the spiritual was the best, the only counterpoise to 
temporal despotism. But, as in other despotisms, that time 
passes away. Christianity, as Mr. Newman admits, did with- 
out it for five centuries ; it will not endure it now. 

Of all historical problems the least difficult to account for is 
the growth first of the monastic, and afterwards of the papal 
power ; and that growth is quite sufficient to explain the long 
dominance of what is called Catholicism. This view accounts 
for every fact and for every passage in the earlier fathers, cited 
in the two statements made by Mr. Newman on the development 
of the Papal power. The episcopal government, which was 
inchoate at least, if not absolutely and universally settled early 
in the second century, in ihe time of Ignatius, 8 would of course 

8 'It is true' (says Mr. Newman) ' St. Ignatius is silent in his Epistles on the 
subject of the Pope's authority ; ' he adds, ' such silence is not so difficult to account 
for as the silence of Seneca and Plutarch about Christianity.' Yet one of the 
Epistles of Ignatius was addressed to the Christians of Eome. The whole question, 
however, about the Epistles of Ignatius is re-opened by Mr. Cureton's publication 
and English interpretation of the Syriac version of three of the Epistles, which, if 
they be not abridgments, which seems highly improbable, show that even the 
smaller Greek copies have been largely interpolated. "We are not among those 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 365 

find one of its chief seats at Rome. No sooner had the notion 
spread that St. Peter was at Rome (and that appears, vaguely 
at least, in Irenseus) than that seat would assume a peculiar 
dignity. It was the only Apostolic See, it was the metropolitan 
see of the West ; but more than this, it was the See of Rome ! 
of Rome, the centre of administration ; the seat of unrivalled 
wealth and power. Among our earliest intimations of the 
greatness of the Roman See, is that from her wealth she con- 
tributed largely to the support of poorer communities. Already, 
in the fourth century, the streets of Rome ran with blood in a 
contested election for the bishopric. The sarcasm of the 
heathen, ' Make me Bishop of Rome, and I will turn Christian,' 
shows her fast accumulating wealth. From the West, at least, 
all civil causes flowed to Rome ; what wonder if religious ones 
followed the same course ? 

Jam dudum Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes. 

Even from the East, all, Christian heretics included, who could 
not live quietly at home, crowded to Rome, in hopes of advan- 
tage or redress. The Eastern apostolic sees fell into strife or 
heresy, at last sank into obscurity under Mahometanism. Con- 
stantinople, though aspiring to equality with Rome, was a see 
but of yesterday— its bishops perpetually oppressed by, or at 
open enmity with, the emperors. 

Rome was not merely the metropolis, she was the mother of 
the Western churches, of Catholic, as contradistinguished from 
Arian Italy, of those of the Franks, the Anglo-Saxons, and of 
Germany. The old Gaulish, the ancient British, or Irish 
churches either melted into the Roman or remained in obscurity. 
The clergy had neither the will nor the power to resist the 

who rest as some do, almost the whole burthen of the episcopal controversy on 
these Epistles. But considering the importance attached to them by others, that 
they have been actually spoken of as a providential revelation to save the imperilled 
cause of episcopacy, we cannot but admire the honest courage which has published 
without scruple copies in which almost all the strong passages on that side are 
wanting The volume in all its parts is most creditable to Mr. Cureton— one of 
our very few really profound Orientalists; and it was eminently worthy of our 
truth-loving primate to permit the dedication of such a work to himself. 



366 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



developing autocracy : the strength of Eome was their strength ; 
to the higher ecclesiastics it was the crown of their order. On 
one part, that of the Eoman Bishop, usurpation seemed a duty ; 
on the other, there could be no general will, no concert in 
resistance. Disunion would have placed the rest of the clergy 
at the mercy of the temporal power. That the Papal power 
naturally developed itself out of the Sacerdotal power, and that 
from both together developed itself the whole of Mediaeval 
Christianity, is clear from this alone, that every doctrine and 
usage which distinguished Mediaeval Christianity from that of 
the New Testament and of primitive times, tends to the aggran- 
dizement of sacerdotal influence, of more than influence, of 
irresistible authority. This is the one great cardinal principle 
of Papal Development. 

We too, as has been said, have our theory of development. 
For us Mr. Newman goes too far, and not far enough. We be- 
lieve that the development of Christianity, of the yet undeve- 
loped or dormant part of Christianity, since the Eeformation, 
has been immense ; the development, we mean, of its morality, 
of its social influence, of its humanity. We quote from a recent 
French writer of great ability : — 

On a dit souvent que le Christianisme nous avait civilise ; peut- 
etre ne serait-il pas moins juste et moms exact de dire que la civilisation 
a epure notre Christian isme. Si la lettre des Evangiles n'a pas change 
nous avons beaucoup change dans notre maniere d'entendre et d'appli- 
quer la loi evangel ique. Nos sentiments et nos principes religieux ont 
suivi la marche de tous nos sentiments et de tous nos principes ; ils 
sont devenus plus purs et plus raisonnables a mesure que nous avons 
ete plus cultives. Les Chretiens d'aujourd'hui ne le sont pas a la 
maniere de ceux du temps de la Ligue. 9 

This is so well said, that it must excuse us from entering at 
length upon a subject which could not be fairly dealt with 
under many pages. 

9 Charles Dunoyer, Liberie du Travail, i. 124. This work, which by its title 
might seem a cold, dry treatise on political economy, is of a yery high order. We by 
no means subscribe to all its opinions, either political, social, or speculative, and 
there are few subjects which it does not embrace ; but throughout there is a vein 
of strong sense, a sober spirit of inquiry, we may add, a power of understanding 
our English institutions very rare in foreign writers. 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 367 

There seems to us a vast fallacy in this argument about the 
perishable character of all sects and communities of Christians 
(how stands the Greek Church?) and the assumed solitary per- 
manence of Rome. For five centuries Christendom existed as 
a confederation of Churches,— of Churches, it is true, heretical 
as well as orthodox, under episcopal rule. We may regret that 
many Christian communities have lost or departed from that 
rule ; but are we called upon to pronounce their total dis- 
franchisement from all the hopes and blessings of Christianity? 
The real and essential Christianity, that of all who hold the 
great truths, endeavour to live up to the lofty morals, look to 
the promises of God in Christ, who have Christian faith, hope, 
and Charity— this Christianity has existed, does exist, and will 
ever exist; it existed through the trials of the first ages, it 
existed within Mediaeval Christianity, it will exist to the end 
of time; and by this Christianity (not by the higher Christian 
polity under which we may have the privilege, or the lower 
under which we may have the disadvantage of living) we shall 
stand or fall, This, though hard and inflexible Roman Catho- 
lic theory may deny, the Roman Catholic heart, like that of all 
Christendom, is, in all but in stern controversialists, eager to 
allow. The inexorable ' nulla salus extra Ecclesiam ' is eluded 
by the holy subterfuges of evangelic charity. 

" What indeed would be the logical conclusion of Mr. New- 
man's theory of development as applied to the whole of history? 
That God, not merely in his permissive but in his active mira- 
culous providence, gradually built up his Church to the height 
of perfection— that he developed it to its full maturity in power 
and knowledge ; and then suddenly, it should seem, abandoned 
its cause, and left it exposed to the ungrateful hostility of man- 
kind! But at the same time he has been pleased to bless 
mankind with an unexampled, intellectual, social, and moral 
advancement. Through the hands of ingenious and scientific 
men he bestowed upon us his most wonderful gift, except that 
of language— printing. This, though, as we have said, the 
most important epoch in the history of Christianity (if we only 



368 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



consider how much it has substituted written for oral teaching) 
has been followed by social and political changes, by discoveries 
which crowd upon each other, till we are breathless in following 
their track, and many of them more or less connected with 
religious development. And will religion only retrograde while 
all things thus rush onward ? We implicitly believe, though 
not in the sense of the transitory movement among ourselves 
towards, or in Germany away from Eome — that in its great 
moral and spiritual power Christianity is steadily on the advance 
— that it is still developing, backwards, in one sense, to the 
simple Gospel, forwards, in another, to the better understanding 
of that Gospel. At all events nothing shall reduce us to that 
worst and most miserable cowardice of unbelief, that the more 
man advances in intellectual, in social, and in moral culture, 
the more God will turn his face from him ; that real human 
wisdom and real Christian wisdom will not at length repose 
together under the shadow of Christian peace. 

The Church of France has, compassionating our benighted 
state, ordered prayers at many of her altars for the conversion 
of England to the Eoman Catholic faith, and this, no doubt, 
was sincerely meant for our good. Even in higher quarters 
indulgences have been granted for the same end. It is even 
said that the secession of Mr. Newman has been no less than a 
miracle wrought by the earnest supplications of Eoman Catholic 
churches, not in England only, but also in many parts of the 
Continent. It would indeed, in our opinion, have been a 
miracle if he had not seceded from our Church, and most 
devoutly for his sake do we rejoice at his determination. We 
pretend not to disguise or to undervalue the loss sustained by 
the Church of England in a man of his piety, ability, and 
influence ; such a loss perhaps has not been experienced since 
the Eeformation ; but in the terrible alternative before his 
mind, if not a Eoman Catholic, what had he been ? With 
regard, however, to her prayers, we might perhaps suggest, in 
the most friendly spirit, to the Church of France the old adage, 
that wise charity begins at home. The most fervent prayers of 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 369 



her sons, if devoted to the conversion of distinguished in- 
dividuals, might find ample scope among themselves ; and, with 
regard to some, we cannot but bid them Grod speed ! Have 
they not to win back their own most powerful writer who has 
appeared since the Eestoration, who having attempted an 
unholy alliance between religion and the wildest democracy, 
now stands alone, a banished but nqt a silent man ? — Have they 
not to win back those who, some of them at least, have been 
estranged and goaded to fury by their ultramontane pretensions 
and foolish superstitions ; men of that kind of eloquence which 
at least commands a most perilous influence over the youth of 
Paris ; popular novelists whose wide-read volumes counterwork 
their popular teaching, and implant deeply and permanently a 
feeling of mistrust, derision, hatred, against their most powerful 
ally ? Have they not to win (a more noble but, in their present 
spirit, a more utterly hopeless task) the whole higher literature 
of France?— Men of science who, from the height of their 
' Positive Philosophy,' look down on Catholicism and Protestant- 
ism as equally obsolete ; men of a more passionate school, who 
find the final Avatar, the full development of Christianity, in 
the levelling Jacobinism of Robespierre and St. J ust ? And 
even a still higher class (and here we neither augur nor wish 
them success), the philosophers who labour even on the writings 
of the Middle Ages with power of thought and with industry 
which may put to shame the feeble hagiographists" of the 
Church party, yet who maintain a wise and dignified im- 
partiality : the historians — one changed from the most ardent 
admirer of the imaginative and better part of Mediaeval 
religion, into their bitterest antagonist — and others who, in 
their dignified superiority, arbitrate unanswerably on all the 
great questions of history, on the inevitable decay as well as the 
rise and power of the Mediaeval Church, on the true develop- 
ment of Christianity out of a pure religion into a vast hier- 
archical system, and, as they prophetically foresee, out of that 
hierarchical system into a universal and eternal religion. 

We repeat that, so far as intended for our good, we are 

B B 



370 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



grateful at least for the spirit of these prayers. But let us 
dispassionately look to the possibility of their accomplishment ; 
and, if there were this possibility, to their inevitable con- 
sequences. We address this to some few amiable but young 
minds among ourselves, who are smitten with a hopeless scheme 
of Medisevalizing England. 

Let us translate the prayer for the conversion of England out 
of its theologic language into that of plain practical common 
sense. It is this : that Divine Providence will be pleased to 
withdraw at once, or to permit to be read only under close or 
jealous superintendence, that English Bible, which is the family 
treasure and record in every household from the palace to the 
cottage — which has been disseminated throughout the land 
with such zealous activity, and received with such devout 
thankfulness— which is daily, or at least weekly, read in 
millions of families, and is on the pillows of myriads of dying- 
men ; that the services of the Church may be no longer in the 
intelligible vernacular English, but in a foreign tongue — a 
tongue, not like the Latin to the people who speak any of the 
affiliated languages, so that its meaning may be partially 
caught, but one absolutely strange and meaningless to the ear ; 
that the communicants at the Lord's Supper may not merely 
be compelled to embrace new doctrines, although at variance 
with all their habits of thought and reason, but be deprived of 
one-half of the precious spiritual sustenance from whence their 
faith has hitherto derived such inappreciable strength ; that in 
all the public services the priesthood shall withdraw into a kind 
of unapproachable sanctity — they alone admitted to direct in- 
tercourse with Grod— the people only through them, and at 
their good pleasure; that from every parsonage in England 
shall be expelled the devout, the blameless, the charitable wife 

the pure and exemplary daughters; that our wives and 

daughters throughout the land shall be compelled to utter their 
most secret, their most holy, their most unutterable thoughts 
in the confessional to some, as it may happen, severe and 
venerable, or young and comely priest ; that England may be 
un-Anglicised, not merely in her Church and in her religion, 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTEINE. 371 



but in her whole national character^ which has grown out of, 
and is throughout interpenetrated by, her reformed faith ; that 
we surrender the hard-won freedom of our thoughts, the 
boldness of our judgements, the independence of our mental 
being — (for without that absolute surrender there can be no 
true, full, and unquestioning conversion to the creed of Rome 
— no submission to Mediaeval Christianity) — that all our proud 
national reminiscences — the glories of our Elizabeth, of the 
reigns of our William and our Anne, shall be disdainfully 
thrown aside — the defeat of the Armada become a questionable 
blessing, the Eevolution a national sin demanding the fullest 
expiation — the accession of the House of Brunswick a crime 
and a calamity — our universal toleration be looked on as a sin 
against Grod — our late-wrung concessions to dissentients revoked 
as soon as the Church regains her power — the sovereign of the 
worst-ruled state in Europe have power to dictate the religious 
part of our Constitution. Nor is our whole history alone to be 
renewed and rewritten : our whole literature — not merely our 
theology from Hooker, and Taylor, and Barrow, down to Paley ; 
but all our great prose writers, Bacon, and Raleigh, and 
Clarendon, even to the present day ; our poets — if Shakspeare 
be too universal not to stand above even these controversies — 
yet Spenser, the poet of Elizabeth — yet Milton, the Italian 
translation of which we saw the other day in the Index of 
prohibited books — yet all (but one-half of Dryden, and that, 
however in his class inimitable, certainly no profoundly re- 
ligious writer, the author of the 'Essay on Man') down to 
Cowper, to Scott, to Southey, and to Wordsworth : all must 
retire or do penance by mutilation ; and give place to a race 
of individuals yet unborn, or at least undeveloped, who in the 
nineteenth century will aspire to reproduce the poetry, the 
history, the philosophy of the fourteenth. 

Cast now a hasty prophetic glance on the consequences. The 
destruction of the English Church (to say nothing of the Scotch) 
may be within the remote bounds of possibility. Can the 
reconstruction of the Roman Catholic as a national Church be 

B B 2 



372 



NEWMAN ON THE 



[Essay VI. 



dreamed of by the wildest enthusiast? One vast voluntary 
system then pervades the land. In the part (the small part, 
we fear) still occupied by religion (we set aside for the moment 
the faithful but discouraged ministers of our Church), the 
Methodist, the Independent, the Baptist, with their Bible and 
hymn-book come into fierce collision with the priest and his 
breviary; and with whom will the people of England — the 
middle and lower classes of England — those that have the real 
sway, the votes, the control of the government, take their side ? 
For one splendid Eoman Catholic cathedral would rise a 
hundred square brick meeting-houses. If a religious war 
could be expected in our later days, the only safeguard against 
that war would be the multiplying of sects, and the great 
numerical superiority of the sectarians. But if any bond could 
unite them, it would be the inextinguishable hatred of what 
they plainly call Popery. And in such a war, while one order 
was vainly seeking its Simon de Montfort, the other would have 
no difficulty in finding its Cromwell. If these be idle fears, at 
least that wise and noble mutual respect which is rising in all 
minds for those who are deep, and sincere, and active in re- 
ligion, and especially where the views of what is religion are 
rational, enlightened— the best sign and the happiest augury 
of our times — that true toleration which is tenacious above all 
things of truth, but wisely patient of the slow advance of others 
to the same truth, would be trampled under foot and trodden 
out in the fierce conflict. 

Will this be the worst? Lay before the intelligent and 
educated — the higher classes ; lay before the intelligent whose 
education is practical life and experience, the artisans and 
manufacturers of England, the remorseless alternative — the 
Christianity of the Middle Ages, or none ; subscribe the whole 
creed of Pope Pius, or renounce that of the Apostles; — 
what man of reason and common sense does not foresee — 
what Christian does not shudder at the issue ? 

We would close with one solemn and amicable question : Are 
we — the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Christian Churches 



Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 373 

the sole competitors for dominion over the minds of men ? 

Is there not an Antichrist equally formidable to both ? Is 
this the best way of meeting our common adversary, this inter- 
necine, this irreconcilable strife among ourselves — this louder 
triumph, it should seem, over a few deserters from each other's 
ranks, than for the reclaiming a host of total unbelievers? 
What is wanted is a Christianity — not for a few monks, or 
monk-like men ; not for a small imaginative past-worshipping 
aristocracy; no, nor for a pious, unreasoning peasantry— but 
for men of the world (not of this world, as we may tauntingly 
be asserted to mean), but men who ever feel that their present 
sphere of duty, of virtue, of usefulness to mankind lies in this 
world on their way to a higher and better— men of intelligence, 
activity, of exemplary and wide-working goodness— men of 
faith, yet men of truth, to whom truth is of God, and to whom 
nothing is of Grod that is not true — men whose religion is not 
sadly and vainly retrospective, but present and hopefully 
prospective. It is our fixed persuasion that the Eoman 
Catholic Church, that is, the Church of the Middle Ages, 
hereafter to the end of time, can be no more than a powerful 
sect (we mean no offence)— a sect, it may be, of increasing 
power ; but an all-comprehending, all-reconciling — a Catholic 
Church, in the only real sense of that phrase, it can never be. 
The shadow on the sundial of the King of Judah once went 
back ten degrees ; the Jesuits once forced back the human mind 
for a certain period to the religion of the dark ages ; but time 
resumed its natural course, and human intelligence will so 
pursue its onward way. The word of Grod is alone immutable, 
and that part of Christianity (however it may have been 
developed) which is the work of Grod, that alone has the power 
of endurance to the end of the world. The indwelling spirit of 
Christ, not confined to one narrow discipline, to one visible 
polity, is still to be developed in more abundant power, to 
exalt, to purify the Primal Idea of Christianity, the true, the 
eternal, the immutable, the real < Dominus nobiscum' which is 
commingled with our humanity. 



374 



VII. 

RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE.' 

(September, 1845.) 

This is perhaps the most remarkable of the countless pam- 
phlets and volumes called forth by the great religious contro- 
versy now raging in France ; remarkable not only from the 
character and position of the author, whose manner of writing, 
with all its excellences and defects, is here displayed in singular 
distinctness ; but also as revealing more fully the real nature 
of the contest, the aims of the conflicting parties, the moral 
force at the command of either, the principles of (we fear) 
their irreconcilable hostility. Not, indeed, that we have any 
clear statement of M. Michelet' s own religious views : his 
manifesto is sufficiently distinct on the points against which he 
wages war ; on his terms of peace he is silent or vague. His 
work begins with these sentences : — ' II s'agit de la Famille.' 
In other words, the domestic happiness, and we will add (sup- 
posing M. Michelet to state the question fairly), if the domes- 
tic happiness, the virtue, of France is at issue. 4 The home is 
in question — that asylum in which, after all its vain struggles 
and disappointed illusions, the heart would fain have repose. 
We return weary to our fireside — do we find repose ? We 
must not dissemble ; we must frankly avow the real state of 
things. There is within the family a serious difference ; the 
most serious of all. We may converse with our mothers, our 
wives, our daughters, about subjects on which we converse with 

1 Du Pretre, de la Femme, de la Famille. Par J. Michelet. 5 me edition. Paris, 
1845. 



Essay VIL] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 375 

indifferent persons, on business, on the news of the day— but 
not on subjects which touch the heart and the moral life, on 
eternity, religion, the soul, and God. Take the moment when 
it would be most delightful to withdraw yourself with your 
family into some common subject ©f thought and feeling, in 
the quiet of the evening, around the family board. There, in 
your own home, by your own ' fireside, do you venture to speak 
on these subjects ? Your mother shakes her head in sadness, 
your wife contradicts, your daughter shows her disapprobation 
by her silence : they are on one side of the table, you on the 
other, and alone. One would suppose, that in the midst of them, 
opposite to you, is seated some invisible person, to controvert 
all you say. Do we wonder that such is the state of the family ? 
Our wives and daughters are brought up, are governed, by our 
enemies ;'— the enemy, M. Michelet explains himself with un- 
hesitating frankness, is the priest ! 

If we were about to throw ourselves headlong into this con- 
flict, we should be much disposed (our readers must excuse the 
levity for the aptness of the illustration) to adopt in serious 
earnestness the prayer of the honest Irishman, who rushed into 
the thick of an irresistible fray, shouting, < God grant I may 
take the right side!' Such, however, is not our design; we 
have enough to do to keep the peace at home, without embark- 
ing in our neighbour's religious quarrels. Yet the Christianity 
of the whole world is bound together by deep and untraceable 
sympathies ; it has many common interests, even where the 
interests appear most adverse ; many secret influences emanate 
from the most hostile forms of faith, which bring them into 
the most strange and unexpected relationship. There is an 
unity among the lovers of peace and true Christian love, which 
places men of the most opposite and conflicting views together 
upon a calm and commanding height. The same principles are 
at work under the most despotic and most democratic forms of 
Church polity. In the Free Church movement in Scotland 
there is a strong Hildebrandine element— and Ireland claims 
the right of resisting the infallible authority of Rome, when 



376 KELATION OF THE CLEKGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

Rome would command peace and order. The great abstract 
question of education by the Church, or by the State, is of 
universal interest: the incorporation, or the dissociation of 
religion from the general system of instruction. Yet the 
manner, and even the principles on which the position and 
influence of the clergy in that system will be discussed, will 
depend on the circumstances of each country. In France, at 
present, the Church proclaims itself the advocate of full liberty 
of education ; the University rests its exclusive claim on what 
it asserts to be the public weal, the actual constitution and the 
genius of the better and more French part of the people, on 
its nationality as established after the revolution. The clergy 
assert their right to open schools and seminaries upon the 
broad principles of religious freedom ; their opponents disclaim 
all hostility to true religion— but in report, in novel, and in 
treatise, denounce the irreclaimable Jesuitism which, openly 
and contrary to law, is endeavouring to obtain possession of the 
public mind ; and which, if not the boast (nous sommes tous 
Jesuites), has been the incautious admission of at least one 
ardent writer. 

Is then the Christianity on which M. Michelet, and those 
who think and feel with M. Michelet, would open as he asserts 
their inmost hearts to their mothers and their wives, but on 
which the stern voice of the priest interdicts all sympathy, 
communion, and harmony — is this the religion— we say not of 
the Gospel in our high Protestant sense, but — of such a more 
rational and practically spiritualized Roman Catholicism as it 
were the worst arrogance of exclusiveness to deny might be 
imagined to arise, not by rudely fending off, but by quietly 
dropping the more un evangelic doctrines, and the haughty pre- 
tensions irreconcilable with a more enlightened age : such as 
might arise in the Church of Bossuet and Fenelon, purified in 
the fire of revolutionary degradation and suffering, taught 
wisdom and humility by the sad remembrance of times when 
Christian faith and Christian feelings were alike extinguished ; 
conscious of its own delinquencies (for the Church of Fenelon, 



Essay VII.] EELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 377 

of St. Vincent de Paul, was the Church of Dubois and Eohan) ; 
above all, national as becomes the Church of a great nation ; 
intelligent as becomes that of an intellectual people ; without 
the dishonest concession or compromise of one true Christian 
principle, but with no needless opposition to the state of the 
public mind ; a purely and sublimely moral and religious, not 
a turbulent political power?— Is it religion with any depth 
and vitality, with any definite creed, with any commanding 
authority over the conscience, with any active zeal, any sincere 
love of Christ and his faith in its purity ? Is it more than a 
something cold and negative— the fastidious or indignant 
repudiation of the follies and superstitions of an antiquated 
f a ith_more than a conscientious aversion, justified by profound 
historical inquiry, for the evils of the Confessional, with its 
manuals of all imaginable and unimaginable crimes ; for the 
Direction, with its dangerous intimacies and morbid excite- 
ments ; the ultramontane pretensions of the clergy, and their 
revival of all the frauds and puerilities of mediaeval miracle ? 
What religion, what Christianity would M. Michelet propose 
in place of that form of the faith which he considers absolutely 
irreconcilable with the state of the male mind in France ? 
What power, what influence would he leave to the priest? 
what should be his intercourse with the family? what his 
social and political position ? To us the writer's lofty phrases 
of 6 the modern spirit, of liberty, and of the future ' (de l'esprit 
moderne, de la liberte, et cle l'avenir), convey no clear sense ; 
but they are coupled with some significant and ill-boding ex- 
pressions about democratical sermons, which M. Michelet 
appears to hail as the only hope of improvement in the clergy. 
Now we must assert our impartial aversion to democratic as 
well as to absolutist sermons. If, as a distinguished partisan of 
the Church party has boldly declared, it is a contest between 
the sons of the Crusaders and the sons of Voltaire, we must be 
permitted to hold our sympathies in abeyance. We are as 
little disposed to that Mahometan fire and sword Christianity, 
as to the Antichristian philosophism of Ferney. 



378 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

We are bound, indeed, to acknowledge that it would be the 
height of injustice to represent M. Michelet, the historian, as an 
infidel writer, or even as hostile to Eoman Catholic Christianity. 
The strong charges of inconsistency which are brought against 
him are his fullest exculpation. Striking and eloquent passages 
from his History in favour of the monkish system, the power of 
the Papacy, the celibacy of the clergy, are adduced in trium- 
phant refutation of his arguments in the present controversy. 
But even if these passages expressed the mature and deliberate 
opinions of M. Michelet, occurring as they do in their proper 
historical place, with reference to a remote age, and a totally 
different state of civilization, we must pronounce them utterly 
irrelevant, and without any legitimate bearing on the present 
question. We take the opportunity of protesting against the 
watchful industry with which every attempt to treat the Papacy 
and the religion of the Middle Ages with fairness and sound 
philosophy, is seized upon as an extorted concession of Pro- 
testant prejudice to the power of truth ; as an unwilling homage 
to the majesty of Eome ; as an approximation worthy of every 
encouragement, to a recognition of the perpetual supremacy, 
the irrepealable sanctity of the whole creed and all the usages 
of Papal Christianity. As if any form of Christian belief was 
without its beneficial power ; as if any amount of engrafted 
human invention could absolutely obscure the blessed light of 
Christ's faith : more especially a form of that faith so wonder- 
fully, we will venture to add providentially, self-adapted to the 
dark ages, as that great Papal system, which it is as impossible 
to contemplate without awe, and even admiration and respect, 
as without gratitude that in his good time Grod was pleased 
either to shatter it to the ground, or to allow it to sink into 
natural decay and dissolution. 

But this, in truth, is a writer whom we scarcely think it fair 
to bind down to the full meaning of his own most forcible and 
brilliant passages. M. Michelet is an historian of a very 
peculiar character, and in some of the qualifications of that 
noblest literary function, unrivalled, or almost unrivalled, in the 



379 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 

present day. He is profound and indefatigable in research ; in 
Ms composition lie has a singular felicity of arranging and 
grouping his facts almost in a dramatic form ; some parts of 
his narrative pass like scenes before the imagination ; he has 
practised skill and at times consummate success, not merely in 
the description, but in the impersonation of character ; he has 
wonderful power in throwing himself back into other periods, 
and environing himself, as it were, with all the incidents of the 
time— he lives, and makes us live among the men, and the 
deeds, the passions and opinions of each successive period : and 
the age too lives again; it is M. Michelet's boast, and no 
ungrounded boast, constantly to renew its actual, peculiar, 
characteristic life. But in all these points it is the ambition 
of M. Michelet to be always striking. From his diligent, and, 
we believe, conscientious study of the old chronicles and records, 
he is constantly picking out, usually with judgement, always 
with acuteness, the slighter discriminating touches or inci- 
dents, the epigrams as it were of history : but on these he 
often lays very undue stress. He is so perpetually straining 
after the drama, and poetry, and romance of history, as some- 
times almost to leave out the history itself. Instead of the 
calm and equable now of the historian, rising occasionally to 
majesty, or stooping almost to familiarity, according to the 
character of the facts which he relates, we have a succession of 
lively and picturesque chapters, in which after all we find it 
difficult to trace the course of events. M. Michelet, in short, 
is often a brilliant writer on history, rather than an historian. 
He will not accuse us of estimating his ambition too low, when 
we say that he aspires to be the Shakspeare and Walter Scott 
as well as the Livy and Tacitus of French history ; but there 
are two other unlucky weaknesses in M. Michelet, which even 
our sincere admiration of his genius must not permit us to 
disguise— one a dreamy sentimentalism, the other a claptrap 
adulation of national vanity, to which neither the English 
dramatist nor the novelist condescend, though possessing the 
privilege of poetry and romance. From the first they were 



380 EELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 



preserved by their masculine good sense, from the latter by the 
quiet consciousness of English greatness. Of M. Michelet's 
peculiar style and taste the volume before us abounds with 
striking illustrations ; but in those extracts for which alone we 
shall trespass on the 6 Pretre ' we must be extremely guarded 
and careful. "We are far too serious on such subjects to pursue 
throughout this history of spiritual flirtation, especially con- 
nected as it is with such high, and we believe blameless, names, 
in the satiric and glowing manner of our author. What pre- 
sent justification M. Michelet may have for thus withdraw- 
ing the veil from the Confessional, from the intercourse of the 
Director with his spiritual charge, and from the perilous work- 
ings of religious Quietism, we feel no temptation to inquire ; 
but there are two grave and solemn questions on which this 
book and this whole controversy cannot but fix every reflective 
mind, and on which we shall presume to offer a few, but we 
trust dispassionate, observations : the importance of the 
Family — of domestic virtue and happiness — to the peace and 
advancement of Europe, especially of France ; and the relation 
of the Christian clergy to their people. With these two ques- 
tions is connected a third, the celibacy of the clergy — a subject 
which abroad is assuming no inconsiderable importance even 
in the Eoman Catholic Church ; and, as may hereafter appear, 
is not altogether without reviving interest among ourselves. 

It may sound trite, even to puerility, that in the present 
social condition the Family is the sole guarantee for the 
stability of the State. In the powerlessness of government in 
the western countries of Europe, there is one great counter- 
poise to that anarchy which is perpetually impending from the 
ambition, the insubordinate passions, the means of agitating 
the public mind through the press, and even from the talents, 
eloquence, and greatness of those adventurers of society, who 
are constantly at every hazard, even of the peace of their 
country, at every sacrifice, even of their own happiness or their 
own lives, determined to force their way to distinction. This 
is the solid and substantial weight of those whose family ties 



Essay VII.] EELATION OF THE CLEKGY TO THE PEOPLE. 381 

bind them to social order. The husbands and the fathers are 
the true conservatives ; their wives and children are hostages 
for civil peace. The youth who is loose upon the world is a 
republican by nature ; he has all to gain and nothing to lose 
by political confusion. In France the history of the country 
has been almost a long revolution since 1789 ; and every great 
general and distinguished statesman has pushed his way to 
fortune by his energy and talents, because all barriers were 
thrown down before energy and talent. And that this revo- 
lution should not continue ; that the future history of France 
should not be like that which Louis Blanc has written— or 
rather that which Louis Blanc would wish to write— not a 
succession of republican abortions, of wild conspiracies against 
all order and government, of Saint Simonianism, Fourrierism, 
and every other strange scheme for the complete regeneration, 
as it is called, of society— nay, still worse, of actual convulsion 
and sanguinary strife : that the political condition of France 
and of other countries who are or may become like France, 
should rather be the salutary agitation of constitutional go- 
vernment, the ardent but not reckless collision of well organ- 
ized parties, formed on recognized principles, and nobly striving 
for ascendancy — not an eternal anarchy, a chronic state of dis- 
solution, till the weary world yearns for the peace of some 
strong despotism — the one guarantee for all this, under (rod, 
is the Family— the Family bound together by strong love, and 
consciously holding its happiness upon the tenure of public 
order. If there be any truth in M. Michelet's statement that 
this source and pledge of peace, the Family, is threatened by 
the intrusion of a dissociating, not harmonizing religion ; if 
the influence of the priest is producing a wide and general 
estrangement between the sexes (les pretres — les envieux 
uaturels du mariage et de la vie de famille) ; if the men in 
opinion, in sentiment, in sympathy, are all on one side as to 
the most momentous questions which can occupy the under- 
standing and the heart, and the females on the other ; the only 
consolation will be that such a state of things cannot endure ; 



382 KELATION OP THE CLEBGrY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 



that parents and husbands will assert their power and authority, 
and a general insurrection of the better feelings will repel the 
invader from the sanctuary of domestic happiness. But how 
fearfully will this reaction operate upon religion, thus brought 
into collision by its unwise apostles with all the holier and 
better feelings of mankind ! Nor is this domestic virtue and 
happiness in France of light comparative hazard. Of all things 
it is most difficult to estimate the comparative morality, in 
certain points, of different countries, or that of the same 
country at different periods. But for the first time in later 
French history (must we not ascend almost to St. Louis for 
an earlier precedent of this moral phenomenon ?) the Court of 
France has set the high example of domestic virtue. We pro- 
fess to be utterly and happily ignorant of the scandal of the 
upper orders in Paris ; but that men of observation, and not 
entirely secluded from the world, can be ignorant of such 
things, is in itself evidence of a great change. At what former 
time has not Europe rung with the deeds of the accomplished 
and shameless mignons and roues of Paris? The statesmen 
whom we could name as examples of every amiable as well as 
of every high and honourable virtue may not fairly represent 
their whole class ; but at least that class is not represented by 
the Eichelieus and so forth of old. Notwithstanding the noisy 
and extravagant enormities in which the drama and romance 
of Paris delight to revel, we believe that domestic virtue has 
greatly advanced both in the upper and the middle classes — the 
bourgeoisie (according to M. Louis Blanc, the actual rulers of 
the country) — since the Eevolution. The security of property, 
no doubt, is with this class another great guarantee against 
political confusion ; but it is the Family which adds weight 
and sanctity to property ; and both are embarked in a common 
cause by common interest. 

Such being the tremendous hazard — the domestic harmony 
and happiness, and with the domestic harmony and happiness 
the domestic morals, and with the morals the only firm security 
against an eternal succession of revolutionary movements — is 



Essay VII.] RELATION OP THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 383 



there any real ground for the jealous apprehensions of M. 
Michelet and his followers ? Is the religion now struggling to 
regain its lost ascendancy the enemy, instead of the harbinger, 
of peace ? Would it enter into the family, not to purify and 
elevate, but to disturb — not to soften, to refine, to assert the 
dignity and authority of the primary domestic relation, but 
rather to weaken or paralyse that which in the Roman Catholic 
Church is the holy sacrament of matrimony ? Is it hostile 
only to the godless and frantic doctrines of Jacobinism, or to 
that real advancement in freedom and civilization which is the 
better sense of that pregnant word 6 progress ? ' This is the 
practical absorbing question, far more than any one connected 
either with the doctrine or ritual of the Church ; it is with 
the moral working on society that society at least is most 
concerned. 

Let us look, therefore, at the converse of this statement ; let 
us hear the pleadings on this delicate point from the opposite 
side. Has real religion found its only repose in those who, as 
their sensitive being more profoundly needs its consolations, in 
every age have been its most successful teachers ; who have 
converted heathen kingdoms, and reared up the best and 
wisest of the Christian saints? Is the wife the object of the 
especial care of the priest, because she alone has her heart open 
to the sacred persuasives of the faith — and with the apostolic 
aim, that the unbelieving husband may be sanctified by the 
believing wife? Is it so, not in order to 4 lead silly women 
captive' to foolish or harassing superstitions, but that the 
legitimate influence of woman may be employed in subduing 
by the sweet lessons of maternal religion that anarchy of fierce 
passions to which (if the modern romances have any touch of 
reality) the youth of Paris, and those who crowd from all parts 
of France to all-engulphing Paris, are cast forth in perilous 
freedom ; and that social anarchy which is constantly threatened 
by the conflict of these individual anarchs ? Is it the noble, 
the Christian ambition of the clergy thus to introduce a 
counterpoise to the still dominant irreligion of the present 



384 KELATION OF THE CLEEGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

instructors and leaders of the public mind ? Is it, to be more 
particular, through one parent at least, to prepare the young 
mind for the dangerous and, as it is asserted, un-Christianizing 
ordeal of the college or the university? Is it to fight the 
great battle of the faith in the only field where it can be 
fought with success? — where the evil is so deeply-rooted, to 
strike at the root of the evil ? In a word, is it the human- 
izing, and socializing, and immortalizing spirit of true Christi- 
anity, which is thus gradually to be infused into the ill- 
cemented fabric of society ? or is it only the galvanic life of 
Jesuitism, which after some strong and painful paroxysms 
will give back the weary body to incurable dissolution and 
decay ? 

Time alone will show the issue of this conflict, in which we 
have no intention to engage as partisans, still less the pre- 
sumption to offer our mediation. But the occasion tempts 
us, in a spirit altogether undogmatic and uncontroversial, to 
enter (at far less length indeed than such topics would require) 
on some questions, which we are persuaded are of the greatest 
importance to mankind ; on which depends the true develop- 
ment (a word much misused) of our religion, at least in its 
moral and social energies ; its wonderful power of self-accommo- 
dation to all the inevitable changes in the manners, habits, and 
opinions of mankind; its predicted authority 'even unto the 
end of the world.' 

The nature of the religion to be taught, and permanently to 
be maintained throughout Christendom, does not depend alto- 
gether on the abstract and speculative doctrines, or on the 
ritual of the Church, but on the manner of the teaching also — 
in other words, on the relation of the clergy to the people. 
What, then, above and beyond their great and undeniable 
function of officiating in the church and at the altar, of con- 
ducting the rites, and administering the Sacraments, is that 
proper superintendence of the heart and soul of each individual 
under their charge, which they can assume, in the present 
state of society, with safety to themselves, with blessing to 
mankind ? 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 385 

We are inclined, at the risk of every suspicion of prejudice, 
and without dissembling the defects and abuses inseparable 
from every system, which must be carried out by men of every 
degree of zeal, conscientiousness, or fidelity, to consider the 
theory of the Church of England as that which for the present 
state of the Christian mind is nearest to perfection. This 
theory of course breaks up all vast overgrown parishes into 
smaller practicable circuits, or at least supplies them with 
ministers of religion answerable to their extent. The theory 
we apprehend to be this :— that in every parish (besides the 
general pastoral care of the clergy over the education of the 
young) every mature and reasonable Christian should have a 
clergyman whom he can consult under all religious doubts, and 
even moral difficulties, which may perplex his mind ; that he 
should command his presence in sickness and on the death- 
bed ; that whenever he needs advice or consolation he should 
be sure of receiving it with affectionate promptitude, and with 
profound interest in his welfare: but that in ordinary cases 
the Christian should be governed entirely by his own con- 
science— that conscience of course awakened and enlightened 
by the regular exhortations from the pulpit, or even private and 
friendly admonition, administered with discretion. The Con- 
fessional, we cannot be too devoutly thankful to Almighty 
God, has never been part of the Protestant English ritual. 
And it is, perhaps, the gravest practical question raised by M. 
Michelet's work, whether the confessional will be long endured 
by Eoman Catholic France. We perceive indeed some yearn- 
ings in a certain school among ourselves after this practice ; — ■ 
at least after that which promises the sacerdotal power, which 
they covet, but which they cannot obtain by more legitimate 
means, the priestly absolution. But though here and there, 
from that passion for novelty which disguises itself under 
reverence for ancient usage, it may acquire some votaries ; 
though even in the form of religion the most opposed to every- 
thing which is thought popish, something very congenial may 
creep in, as the confidential relation of 6 experiences ' to the 

c c 



3S6 EELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Ess« VII. 

favourite preacher ; yet the jealous household seclusion of Eng- 
lish manners will secure us from any great or dangerous abuse 
of this influence. The Englishman would repel the private 
entry of the clergyman, if he thought his visits too frequent or 
assiduous, as he would that of the Queen's officer, from the 
inviolable castle of his home. 

The ao-e of the confessional, of spiritual direction according 
to the sense which it bore during the Jesuit dominion over the 
human mind, is gone by. It is fatal to the clergy, whom it 
invests in power too great for mortal man-in power, when 
assigned to an order gathered from all classes and characters of 
men, destructive of proper religious influence :-and no less 
fatal, we are persuaded, to pure Christian morality and to high 
Christian virtue. There is, to our calm judgement, a primary 
and irremediable incompatibility with the true rules of Chris- 
tian responsibility in this absolute assumption of dominion on 
one side over the inward being of our fellow, and the surrender 
of it on the other. The great broad principles of Christian 
law and of Christian duty can never be mistaken. The health- 
ful conscience, in the general conduct of life, even in the dis- 
charge of religious service, ought to be its own sufficient guide. 
It is as sure a symptom of mental or spiritual disease to be 
constantly consulting the priest, as of bodily malady or vale- 
tudinarianism to be constantly consulting the physician 
There are fearful, painful, miserable sicknesses of both mind 
and spirit; and in God's name let them have all which skill, 
and gentleness, and wisdom, and Christian consolation and 
instruction can bestow. Let the mind which is afflicted by 
rackin" doubt have the pious adviser to satisfy its fearful 
questionings. Be there the learned divine to grapple with 
wayward scepticism-with the daring desperation of the un- 
believer Let those perhaps more dangerous doubts which 
arise from redoubled and extreme affliction— the maddening 
and wicked thought of the injustice of God in seemingly assign- 
ing all his blessings to one class, all wretchedness to another- 
be allayed by wise and tender argument. Let remorse for 



Essay VII.] KELATION OF THE CLEEGY TO THE PEOPLE. 387 



crime take counsel on the best means of reconciliation with 
Grod — of restitution, or of reparation for injury to man; let 
sorrow never want the sympathising prayer, the soothing ex- 
hortation ; let the house of sickness be visited with kindly and 
regular consolation ; the death-bed be smoothed by the hand 
of Christian hope and peace. But foster not habits of irreso- 
lution and dependence ; keep not the mind in a fretful state of 
anxiety; teach man consciousness in his own strength — that 
strength which Grod will give to all ; encourage no one to sur- 
render himself as the subject of morbid moral anatomy — to 
have the hand perpetually on the religious pulse, or the probe 
in the most vital parts. It is still worse if this intercourse 
degenerates, as it often will, into a form. The priest, if at 
times more rigid, punctilious, and exacting to the anxious, will 
at times be too easy and compromising to the more careless. 
Confession on one side and absolution on the other become acts 
of religious courtesy, and there is so much facility in discharg- 
ing his debts that the penitent is careless how soon or to what 
extent he may accumulate a new score. The security which it 
gives must be as perilous as its most cruel austerity. 

The mental and spiritual childhood of man is passed — let 
him learn to go alone as a moral and responsible being. The 
clergy must be constantly supplying motives and principles for 
self-government, not assume to be the executive of human 
action. Among the savages of Paraguay that might be a 
wise and beneficial government which, were it possible, would 
be destructive to religion itself in Europe. All attempts, in 
Jesuit phrase, emmaillotter Vame, will not merely be an utter 
and ridiculous failure, but a signal disruption of all the 
salutary restraints of religion. This is at best, even when 
administered neither with harsh nor harassing severity, nor as 
dangerous facility, but a religion of awe ; its votaries may 
submit to the severest mortifications, but it is because they 
are enjoined ; they may make the most prodigal sacrifices, 
pour their whole fortune at the feet of the priest — but it is 
desperate prodigality, wrung forth by fear ; its obedience is 



388 EELATION OF THE CLEBGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

servile ; it is usually the dread of man rather than of the 
Maker — the stern rebuke, the terrible interdict of the human 
voice rather than that of Grod within the conscience. It may 
anticipate and prevent much crime and vice ; it may incite to 
what is called virtue: but the virtue altogether wants the 
dignity of being free, spontaneous, unforced ; it is the tribute 
of the slave, wrung from him by a despotic satrap, not poured 
by voluntary love and homage at the feet of the King 
of kings. 

Each of these objections would require to be wrought out 
into a long and careful chapter. "We must look to history, 
which speaks with sufficient distinctness, and to those other 
sources of authentic information which have ventured to 
betray the secrets of the Confessional. We must look around 
us at once with calm and dispassionate inquiry. Among the 
English Koman Catholics, the confessional is kept under, as it 
were, by the dependence of the clergy upon the laity— by that 
rigorous good sense which is part of the English character, and 
which cannot but be maintained by the constant presence of a 
rival faith. In Ireland, however it may seem ineffective or 
lenient as to crimes of blood, it is generally acknowledged, as 
regards the relations of man and woman, not merely to be 
irreproachable, but highly beneficial : we are willing to believe 
that it is so. In Southern countries the result is far different : 
the fearful revelations in the early life of Mr. Blanco White 
are strong enough as to Spain. M. Michelet may colour darkly 
as to former times in France, yet is his colouring untrue ? It is 
when we thus come to its practical workings on a refined and 
dissolute state of society, that we feel still more the necessity, 
yet the difficulty, of confining ourselves within our appointed 
limits. The subject, to do it complete justice, demands a long 
historical induction. When men in general were children, the 
clergy alone men, there might be some better excuse for this 
perpetual interference of parental authority. But in coun- 
tries where, we presume not to say from national temperament, 
but from civil convulsions, in general fatal to morals, or from 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 389 

unknown causes, dissoluteness of manners prevails to a wide 
extent; there it would be no liberal courtesy, but a base 
abandonment of truth, to disguise our convictions of its irre- 
mediable, unavoidable tendency to the deepest demoralization. 
When we see it stimulating human passions — passions express- 
ing themselves in that ambiguous amatory language which 
applies equally to earth and heaven, but still betraying the 
lower nature even in the presence of such stainless men as 
St. Francis de Sales or Fenelon (look at the words of Madame 
du Chastel, quoted by Michelet), or even before the awful 
Bossuet himself — we almost tremble to imagine what it must 
have been at the command of the worldly, the ambitious, the 
sensual, and unscrupulous priest. Even where it did not 
perhaps especially and peculiarly corrupt the clergy, did not 
the confessional in certain hands lower the general morality of 
nations? Did it not frame a system of evasion, of com- 
promise, of equivocation, at which Christendom stood aghast ? 
For the Confessional is the parent of all those huge tomes of 
casuistry which now repose in ponderous slumbers on the 
shelves of ecclesiastical libraries, but which are ever distilled 
into small manuals — even now, we lament to say, placed in the 
hands of the younger clergy. This casuistry, as M. Michelet 
justly observes, was addressed to the world when it was reeking 
with all the foam and mire of the civil wars. 6 There you 
read of crimes which probably were never committed but by 
the terrible soldiers of the Duke of Alva— or those Companies, 
in the thirty years' war, without country, without law, without 
G oc l — vraies Sodomes errantes dont l'ancienne eut eu horreur.' 
This is among the strongest points of the Anti-Jesuit party ; 
and if the clergy of France make common cause with — if they 
do not disclaim — this education of the priestly mind in the 
theory of all possible or impossible criminality, the moral 
indignation of mankind will shake off their yoke as a pesti- 
lence. Books of very recent date have been forced upon our 
notice (one bearing the name of the bishop of an important 
see), of which we write with the calmest deliberation, that if 



390 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 



a husband or the father of a family knew a priest, a young- 
priest, to have had his mind and memory infected by them, 
and did not spurn him from his door, he would be guilty of a 
sin against the (rod of purity — of a wicked and cowardly 
abandonment of his most sacred duties. Those who are but 
partially read in this controversy will find enough in a work of 
M. Libri. It is in vain to defend these publications, either as 
necessary or as mere harmless and traditionary speculations. 
One of the books which we have seen is made still more 
offensive by being adapted to modern use by a surgeon, who 
asserts that all the advanced medical knowledge on every part 
and condition of the human frame is indispensable to the 
priest. Even if any one of such inconceivable monstrosities 
as these works coolly conceive were to be revealed, by con- 
fession or otherwise, to a priest, and his natural and Christian 
horror of such things did not at once direct him how to act, 
such a case should be reserved for the bishop, and kept in 
deeper than religious silence. 

But if such learning be so perilous to the priest's own 
inward sanctity — what is it when brought into contact with 
penitents of every age and moral condition, and of either 
sex— when, profoundly instructed in such a manual, the priest 
proceeds to scrutinize the secrets — -perhaps of a delicate female 
heart ? 

Et ce jeune pretre, qui d'apres vous croit que le monde est encore ce 
monde efFroyable, qui arrive au confessionnal avec toute cette vilaine 
science, l'imagination meublee de cas monstrueux — vous le mettez, ini- 
prudents ! ou comment vous nommerai-je, en face d'une enfant qui n'a 
pas quitte sa mere, qui ne sait rien, n'a rien a dire, dont le plus grand 
crime est d'avoir mal appris son catechisme, ou blesse un papillon. — 
P. 24. 

This is the deep original sin of the whole system. That it 
compels the minds of all, young as old, the tender maiden, 
whose light heart is as pure as the summer fountain, to dwell 
on thoughts from which they ought to be diverted by every 
lawful means ; and not to dwell on them only, but to give 
them words, and that to a person of another sex. What she 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 391 

would scarcely dare to utter to her mother, to herself, is, with 
but a thin wooden partition, to be whispered, but distinctly 
whispered— and that not now to a hoary and venerable prelate, 
not to a monk pale with fasting and emaciated with study and 
prayer, and bowed to the earth with premature age— not to 
one who retires again with her secret to his lonely cell— but 
one in the full vigour, it may be, of manly beauty, whom she 
meets at every corner of the street, perhaps in her common 
society, and as a welcome guest in the quiet saloon of her own 
home. 

M. Michelet sets forth with his usual graphic power, and 
at least with that probable truth which may suggest serious 
reflection, another scene (his pamphlet, like his history, is all 
scenes) in which a devotee, not quite so ignorant of the world, 
may pass from one excitement to another : — 

Quel lieu, je vous prie, plus puissant que 1 eglise sur Imagination— 
plus riche en illusions, plus fascinateur? C'est l'eglise justement qui 
ennoble l'homme, vulgaire ailleurs, qui le grandit, l'exagere, lui prete sa 

poesie. „ , 

Voyez-vous cette solennelle figure qui, sous lor et la pourpre des 
habits pontificaux, monte avec la pensee d'un peuple, la priere de dix 
mille hommes, au triomphal escalier du choeur de Samt-Denis ? Le 
voyez-vous encore, qui sur tout ce peuple a genoux, plane a la hauteur 
des routes, porte la tete dans les chapiteaux parmi les tetes ailees des 
an-es, et de la lance la foudre ? ... Eh bien ! c'est lui cet archange 
terrible, qui tout a l'heure descend pour elle, et maintenant doux et 
facile, vient, la-bas, dans cette chapelle obscure l'entendre aux heures 
languissantes de l'apres-midi ! Belle heure ! orageuse et tendre (et pour- 
quoi done le cceur nous bat-il si fort ici ?). Comme elle est deja sombre 
cette eglise ? il n'est pourtant pas tard encore. La grande rose du por- 
tail flamboie au soleil couchant. . . . Mais c'est toute autre chose au 
choeur; des ombres graves s'y etendent, et derriere c'est l'obscunte. . . 
Une chose etonne et fait presque peur, d'aussi loin que Ton regarde ; 
c'est, tout au fond de l'eglise, ce mystere de vieux vitraux qui, nemon- 
trant plus de dessin precis, scintillent dans l'ombre comme un ilhsible 
grimoire de caracteres inconnus. ... La chapelle n'en est pas moms 
obscure; vous n'en distinguez plus les ornements, les delicates nervures 
qui se nouaient a la voute ; l'ombre s'epaississant arrondit et confond les 
formes. Mais, comme si cette chapelle sombre n'etait pas encore assez 
sombre, elle enferme dans un coin l'etroit reduit de chene noir, ou cet 



392 KELATION OF THE CLEKGrY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

homme emu, cette femme tremblante, reunis si pres l'un de l'autre, vont 
causer tout bas de l'amour de Dieu. — Pp. 204-206. 

We have done some violence to ourselves in quoting this 
passage, of which, however brilliant, we can neither altogether 
approve the spirit or the tone ; but it furnishes a conclusive 
argument. Where such men can write fearlessly and un- 
rebuked, at least by any dominant, we say not universal, 
feeling, of the confessional in such language, is it not a sign 
that its authority, and therefore that its use, has passed away ? 
If not awful, it must be dangerous, or worse than dangerous. 
It is idle to denounce, as some may be inclined to denounce, 
the irreverence, the sacrilegious insolence, the impiety of such 
writers ; the page is read from one end of France to the other : 
and how large a part of France will hail it as the vivid ex- 
pression of its own sentiments! Can the confessional regain 
its awfulness in the face of such remonstrance — be that re- 
monstrance just or not — with the historic certainty that in the 
Church of Eome itself it is but of recent date ? For though 
confession is as old as Christianity, the compulsory confession 
to the priest was first enjoined by an authoritative decree in 
the pontificate of Innocent III. 2 

Christianity must never be degraded to a mere moral law ; 
it must never for an instant forget its loftier mission of 
making the Invisible visible ; of raising the soul far above this 
sublunary sphere : but while it is above, it must not be against 
the moral sentiment, the enlightened moral sentiment of man- 
kind; it must harmonize with it jealously, severely, and 
without suspicion. Priestly influence may silence it, may 

2 With the author of a book which has just reached us, De la Confession, et du 
Celihat des Pretres, par Erancisque Bouvier, we would both willingly augur, and 
devoutly pray for the increasing influence of the Pulpit, rather than of the Con- 
fessional. This work, though of considerable ability, and with much knowledge 
of the subject, is not written in the calm tone, or with that severe accuracy of 
learning, which is demanded in this grave controversy. The quotations are strangely 
loose, some of the references incorrect — almost all to author or volume, without 
chapter or page. In one place, among the authorities cited is Tripartite (p. 414) ; 
a newly discovered ecclesiastical historian— we presume, an impersonation of the 
Historia Tripartita. 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 393 



pervert it, may substitute for it some other absorbing impulse ; 
but the indissoluble wedlock of Christian faith and perfect 
morals cannot be long violated with impunity. Christianity 
has not emancipated woman to submit her to another do- 
minion than that of her husband. 

But the influence of the Confessional is nothing to that of 
the Direction. The confessor receives his penitents in the 
church, at appointed hours ; the director, at his own time, in 
the private house : — 

Au confesseur on dit les peches ; on ne lui doit rien de plus. Au 
directeur on dit tout, on se dit soi-meme et les siens, ses affaires, ses in- 
terets. Celui a qui Ton confie le plus grand interet, celui du salut 
eternel, comment ne lui confierait-on pas de petits interets temporels, le 
mariage de ses enfants, le testament qu'on projette, etc.? Le confesseur 
est oblige au secret ; il se tait, ou devrait se taire. Le directeur n'a point 
cette obligation. II peut reveler ce qu'il sait, surtout a un pretre, a un 
autre directeur. Supposons dans une maison une vingtaine de pretres 
(ou un peu moins, par egard pour la loi d'association) qui soient les uns 
confesseurs, les autres directeurs des memes personnes ; comme direc- 
teurs, ils peuvent echanger leurs renseignements, mettre en commun sur 
une table mille ou deux mille consciences, en combiner les rapports ; 
comme les pieces d'un jeu d'echecs, en regler d'avance les mouvements, 
les interets, et se distribuer a eux-memes les roles qu'ils doivent jouer 
pour mener le tout a leurs fins. — P. 225. 

It is this Direction which, withdrawing confession from its 
last control — the solemnity of the church — from the partial 
publicity, the dignity of a sacred ceremony — introduces into 
the family one that is not of the family, but who rules it with 
despotic sway; who knows more of the intimate thoughts of 
the husband than the wife, of the wife's than her husband ; 
who has an authority greater than that of the parent over the 
child, because the child intuitively feels that it is the Director, 
not the parent, who determines everything. Thus all that is 
delightful in affection, its spontaneity, is checked and chilled ; 
mutual confidence passes through the intervention of a third 
person; love itself becomes timid and surreptitious — it has 
lost all its free and unrestrained effusion. It is now no longer 
the eye of Grod, whose eternal providence is watching over 



894 EELATION OF THE CLEEGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

the development of the affections, the growth of the individual 
moral being, and the reciprocal influence of members of a 
harmonious family upon each other ; but the prying, curious, 
sleepless, importunate, inevitable eye of a man — who is 
present in the most intimate intercourse, hears every word, 
coldly watches every emotion ; whom habitual hypocrisy vainly 
attempts to elude, and habitual servitude only can satisfy. 
This assuredly is a temptation to spiritual tyranny to which 
human nature should not be exposed. A Bodin is the in- 
evitable consequence of the system. The confession, too, of 
one must involve the conduct of others : thus it is an universal 
delation by a religious police, with an espionage in every 
family. The director is to the wife another husband, to the 
friend a more intimate friend, to the statesman far more than 
his secretary, to the king nearer than his minister. This 
direction, though not confined to the Jesuits, was the great 
secret of the J esuit power ; and, no doubt, of the Jesuit ruin. 
It would be a curious speculation how far the decrepitude of 
the old royal families of Europe, which led to the triumph of 
the French revolutionary principles, may be traced to direc- 
tion. Hereditary malady, no doubt, in many cases surrendered 
the enfeebled sovereign, without resistance, to this secret domi- 
nation ; but it is a melancholy truth, that in scarcely any 
instance did this close religious superintendence restrain, we 
say not the follies, but the grosser vices of these kings. Trace 
it from the soft and easy rule of Father Cotton down to 
the Pere Tellier, down to the accommodating directors of 
Louis XV., and throughout almost the whole line of Spanish 
Bourbons. While even this poor advantage — poor as far as 
their subjects were concerned — was not obtained, the affairs of 
the kingdom were left to upstart favourites made or unmade 
by this secret influence — or they were abandoned to total 
neglect. To maintain that power — that sovereignty above the 
sovereign — that abasement of the temporal below the spiritual 
dominion — which the Gregorys and Innocents sought by the 
bolder means of direct aggression, of haughty pretension, of 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 895 

spiritual force and violence, but which was far more fully 
exercised by being behind the throne rather than above it — 
what sacrifice could be too great? Christian morality went 
first: had not Pascal, with his fearless irony, forbade the 
divorce, it would have been complete. Monarchy, which 
ceased to rule, fell into contempt. The whole mind of Eoman 
Catholic Europe, which by an education, cold, minute, laborious, 
Jesuitism strove to engross and keep down to a dead level of 
mediocrity, woke up suddenly, opened its wondering eyes, and 
mistook the brilliant meteor of the Voltairian philosophy for 
the sunlight of truth. Eeligion itself, without the poetry of 
the older Catholicism, or the more severely reasoning faith of 
Protestantism, which this order had been inculcating from the 
cradle to the grave, on the peasant, on the sovereign — to which 
they had been endeavouring to enslave literature, arts, philo- 
sophy—was suddenly found dead. With all the rising gene- 
ration as it would have seemed — at their disposition, they 

had not a man of talent or vigour to stand in the breach : it 
was as if their triumph had smitten the whole Church with 
barrenness. While this vast spiritual police seemed omni- 
potent as omnipresent — while by every kind of intrigue, 
by correspondence throughout and far beyond the civilized 
nations, by a freemasonry which communicated with the 
rapidity and the secresy of the electric telegraph, it appeared 
to rule the world, it was put down, as it were, by acclamation. 
The suppression of this wonderful Society — for wonderful it 
was in its rise — in its progress to almost universal dominion 
—in the extraordinary characters of its first founders — in its 
reconquest of half Germany from Protestantism, in its foreign 
missions, which, after astonishing Christendom with their 
boasted success, were disclaimed by more than one Pope, as 
compromising the truth and the purity of religion ;— their 
suppression is the evidence of their utter weakness in what 
appeared their hour of strength : they were still directors of 
half the consciences in a large part of Europe, when they 
were at once and contemptuously discharged. The Pope was 



396 E ELATION OF THE CLEEGrY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 



compelled to abandon them; and the only protectors they 
found were the English (with whom they had entered into 
some questionable commercial relations in America), that 
pious Christian Frederick of Prussia, and the virtuous Empress 
Catherine ! 3 

We return to the relation of the clergy to the people. Of 
all the manifold blessings we owe to the Eeformation, the 
greatest was that which restored the minister of Christ to his 
position as a citizen and as a man; the abrogation of the 
celibacy of the clergy ; the return from that monastic Chris- 
tianity, which from the fourth century had held out a false 
model of perfection, to genuine primitive Christianity. 

Believing, as we implicitly do, the whole monastic system to 
have come originally not from the shores of the Jordan, but 
from those of the Granges — not from the foot of Carmel or 
Lebanon, but of the Himalaya ; believing it to be founded on 
a false philosophy — the malignity of matter, and in conse- 
quence the sinfulness of everything corporeal ; believing it to 
be a dastardly desertion of one-half of our duty under the 
pretence of exclusive devotion to the other — the utter abne- 
gation of one of the great commandments of the Law, the 
love of man; believing it to be directly opposite to the 
doctrine of our Lord, who seems designedly to reject the 
example of John the Baptist as applicable to his disciples; 
believing that the one or two passages in the New Testament 
which can be thought to tend that way relate merely to the 
dangerous and afflicting times of the primitive Christians; 
believing that the perfection of Christianity is the active per- 
formance of duty, the devotion, the dedication of every faculty 
of body and of mind with which we were endowed by God to 
the identical cause of Grod and human happiness ; believing it 
to be inconsistent with any pure and lofty conception of the 
Godhead, and of the true dignity and destination of man; 
believing it to be low and selfish in its object — superstitious 

3 See the curious recent volume of M. St. Priest. 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 397 

and degrading in its practices — at best but a dreamy and 
indolent concentration of the individual upon himself under 
the fond supposition that he is in communion with Grod — or 
the degradation of our better faculties to coarse employments, 
which there are and must be coarse natures enough to fulfil ; — 
yet, with all this, we hesitate not to do justice, and ample 
justice, to individual monks, to monasteries, and to monas- 
ticism itself. In their time they have doubtless wrought 
incalculable good — good which could not have been wrought 
without them. The monk, because he has, been a monk — at 
least, because he has not been encumbered with earthly ties — 
has been able to rise to the utmost height of religious self- 
sacrifice, of Christian heroism in the cause of God and of man. 
The monastery, at least in the West, has been the holy refuge 
of much human wretchedness, driven from the face of a hostile 
and inhospitable world — of much sin, which required profound 
and solitary penance — of much remorse, which has been 
soothed and softened. They have taught industrial habits to 
rude and warlike tribes, and fertilized deserts ; they have been 
the asyla of learning and the arts, the schools from which 
issued the most powerful intellects throughout the middle 
ages. Of their inestimable services, especially of the Bene- 
dictines, to letters, what lover of letters would not be afraid 
lest he should speak with less liberal gratitude than justice 
would demand ? 

So, too, the celibacy of the secular clergy — imperfectly as it 
was enforced and perseveringly resisted or eluded, and therefore 
constantly producing the evil of practice inconsistent with 
theory, of life at war with the established laws — nevertheless, in 
its time, produced much collateral and adventitious good. It 
was not merely that the missionary priest, as well as the 
missionary monk, was better qualified for the great work to 
which he had devoted himself, by being unincumbered with 
amiable weaknesses and with sympathies which might have 
distracted the energies of his heart and soul ; but there was a 
more profound policy than at first appears in the stern measures 



398 EELATION OF THE CLEKGY TO THE PEOPLE, [Essay VII. 



of Gregory VII. to seclude the clergy from mankind. Not 
only was an unmarried clergy a more powerful instrument for 
the advancement of the Papal sway, and an aristocracy neces- 
sary to maintain the great spiritual sovereignty, which he 
aimed to set up above the temporal thrones of Europe ; but in 
the strong hereditary tendencies of the feudal times, a married 
clergy would have become an hereditary caste, and finally sunk 
back, bearing with it the gradually alienated endowments of 
the Church into the mass of each nation. But this view re- 
quires far more than a passing sentence, and more indeed than 
all which hereafter we shall be able to bestow upon it. 

However it may appear to some of our readers, this whole 
question of the monastic Christianity and the celibacy of the 
clergy is by no means idle and irrelevant at the present hour. 
Our Ecclesiidolaters are not content with the cathedral — they 
are looking back with fond and undisguised regret to the 
monastery; they disdain the discomfited surplice, and yearn 
after the cowl and the scapulary. When we have men not 
merely of recluse and studious temperament, with the disposition 
and habits of the founder of a religious order, revelling in 
subtleties of the intellect like an old schoolman, with a con- 
scious and well-tried power of captivating young minds by 
the boldness and ingenuity of religious paradox ; but those too 
who have known the sanctifying blessings and the sanctifying 
sorrows of domestic life, not as yet indeed condemning the 
marriage of the clergy, but holding up monastic celibacy as a 
rare gift, an especial privilege of Grod's designated saints, 
assuming the lofty indignation of insulted spirituality against 
those who utterly deny the first principles of this doctrine — it 
may be time to show even hastily and imperfectly the grounds 
on which the English Church has deliberately repudiated the 
whole system. 

Among other startling publications of the day, Mr. Albany 
Christie (still, we believe, a professing Anglican) has lately given 
us a tract on Holy Virginity, adapted from St. Ambrose, for 
modern use — a mystic rhapsody in the worst style of that most 



Essay VII.] RELATION OP THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 399 



unequal of the ancient fathers, strangely and, we must take the 
freedom to say, comically, mingled up by the translator with 
allusions to modern manners. The boldness with which the 
authority of Scripture is dealt with in this little work is by no 
means the least curious point about it, considering that it is un- 
scrupulously, no doubt from reverence, as proceeding from a 
holy father of the church, reproduced at this time. ' Consider,' 
we read, 'that they were virgins who, in preference to the 
Apostles, first saw the resurrection of the Lord.' 4 Now we read 
in St. Luke that it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and 
Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with 
them, which told these things unto the Apostles (xxiv. 10). As 
all biblical critics know, there is some difficulty in harmonizing 
the accounts of the Evangelists as to the coming of the women 
to the sepulchre ; but without entering into the question about 
Mary Magdalene, besides the maternity of the other Mary, we 
read of Joanna that she was the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward ; 
and Salome (who is named in St. Mark, xv. 40) was probably 
the mother of Zebedee's children ! But the Song of Solomon 
furnishes the great persuasives to Holy Virginity, — 

l My locks,' saith he, ' are filled with the drops of night ' (Cant. v. 2). 
Upon his head the razor came not, he is the Prince of Peace, and steel 
is the sign and implement of war, therefore are his locks unshorn ; and 
they are filled with the drops of the night, the meaning of which we 
have already seen, even the dew of the Holy Spirit, which refreshes the 
parched and weary soul, watering the dry and sun-baked soil, that it 
may bear fruits of holiness. But we must not haste too fast : his locks 
are, as of a holy Nazarite, unshorn, the razor hath not touched his head : 
yet how unlike the ringlets of the wanton daughters of fashion, dressed 
with crisping pins, curled and plaited with a hireling's art, divided 
hither and thither with minutest care, redolent with luxurious perfumes 
and scented oils ; these are not ornaments but criminal devices ; not the 
modest headgear of the virtuous maiden, but impure allurements to un- 
chaste thoughts and enticements of a soul, if not a body, the victim of 
prostitution. These haughty daughters of England, who walk with out- 
stretched necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, 
despise the degraded and wretched woman whom deceit has lured, or 



* Tract on Holy Virginity, derived from St. ArnLrose, p. 7. 



400 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 



agonising poverty has driven from the paths of virtue ; think you that 
their virtue would be proof, if the fear of public infamy were withdrawn 
against the deed of sin, when now so many acts imply that the thought 
of sin is no stranger to their minds ? — P. 3 1 . 

So according to this new treatise on the ' Unloveliness of 
Lovelocks,' (pardon this approximation of Old Prynne and St. 
Ambrose,) all young ladies who curl their hair, or have their 
hair curled by a 6 hireling,' are in heart no better than the out- 
casts of the Strand ! 

Shun then, Christian virgins, the public walks, shun the places of 
public concourse ; shun the hot ball-room ; the worldly bazaar (the more 
worldly because hypocritical) ; the fashionable watering-places ; aye, 
and the Church of God, which should be the house of prayer, but which 
is made the scene of man's display and man's idolatry, where Christ's 
little ones, the poor and wretched, cannot (for delicacy and pride ex- 
clude them) come to worship. — P. 18. 

This, if we could be amused by such things, would be an 
amusing confusion of modern antique notions and antipathies. 
St. Ambrose may possibly have had a convent chapel to send 
his recluses to ; but are the young ladies of the new school not 
to go to church at all— because, to the horror of Mr. Christie, 
they may find it necessary to sit in pews f 

It is singular that these monastic notions, even partially and 
timidly admitted, seem to produce an indelicacy and even 
grossness of thought and sentiment, which in the most innocent 
gaiety of manners, and in the most harmless amusements, can 
see nothing but the deepest and most shameless corruption. 
Omnia muncla mundis may be a doubtful adage, but omnia 
immunda immimdis is irrefragable. The whole series of 
6 Lives of the Saints,' in language severely pure, perpetually 
shows a coarseness of thought, we are persuaded more danger- 
ously immoral than works of a far lighter and far less rigid 
tone. 5 We mean not only those perilous adventures in which 

5 We suppose most of our readers are aware that the Lives of the English 
Saints, publishing in small monthly numbers, were started with a preface by Mr. 
Newman, and are generally considered as having been designed to supply the 
place of the suspended Tracts for the Times. We have before us a dozen of these 
numbers. 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 401 



almost all their knight-errants of monkish valour are tried — 
and from which they take refuge by plunging head over ears 
into cold water ; and all the other strange conflicts with 
daemons, who seem to have a peculiar spite against this especial 
virtue. 6 We dread the general effect of these writings on the 
minds of young men, aye, and young women too ; for we have 
no doubt that the beauty and simplicity with which a few at 
least of these very unequal biographies are composed — the 
singular skill with which every thing which is is depreciated, 
and every thing which has been is painted in the most captivat- 
ing light — the consummate artifice with which the love of 
novelty is disguised under a passion for ancient and neglected 
truth — will obtain some female readers. We dread it because 
throughout these writings the minds of the pure of both sexes, 
and especially of that which is purest by nature and by educa- 
tion, by innate modesty and tender maternal watchfulness, are 
forced to dwell on thoughts which recur frequently enough, 
without being thus fostered by being moulded up inseparably 
with religious meditation. The true safeguard of youthful 
manners is the sensitive delicacy which restricts from tamper- 
ing with such subjects ; the strong will which dismisses them 
at once, and concentres itself on other subjects, on the business 
of life, on intellectual pursuits, or even on sports or exercises : 
but here, by this one conflict being represented as the great 
business of life, as the main object of spiritual ambition, no 
escape is left open ; it does not naturally recur, but is hourly 
and momentarily recalled ; the virtue we have no doubt is often 

6 See some small but clever tracts, called Modern Hagiology, in the first of 
which, p. 10, et seq., are some significant extracts (such as we hardly dare venture), 
and some sensible observations on the language of these stern asserters of the strict- 
ness of what they call Catholic morals. As this writer says, ' a saint, according to 

teaching, is plainly a person of no ordinary degree of natural viciousness, 

and of unusual and almost preternatural violence of animal passions. His sanctity 
consists mainly in the curious and far-fetched ingenuity of the torments by which he 
contrives to keep himself within the bounds of decency.' The example is that of St. 
Cuthbert, a bishop, who, when he went to hold holy conversation with the abbess 
St. Ebba, took the precaution to cool himself every night 'by standing up to his 
neck in the water, or in the chilly air ! ' 

D D 



402 RELATION OF THE CLERG-Y TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII, 



rendered absolutely unattainable by the incessant care for its 
attainment. 

This — almost beyond their perilous tampering with truth, 
and endangering of all faith, by demanding belief in the most 
puerile miracles, as though they were Holy Writ, or at least 
insinuating that there is no gradation in the sin of unbelief — 
and we must add a most melancholy hardness and intolerance 
— will confine the influence of these new hagiologists to a 
few, and those the younger readers, who will hereafter become 
wiser. 

There is a passage in the 6 Life of St. Gilbert,' which, profane 
and uninitiated as we are, we read with a shudder. The author 
is speaking of certain dreams which determine the saint ab- 
solutely to forbid himself the sight of a woman. After an 
allusion, to our feelings most irreverent, to the Virgin Mary, 
he goes still further ; with, as usual, either a real or a studied 
ignorance of the meaning of the Bible. fi He who was infinitely 
more sinless by grace, even by nature impeccable, because he 
was the Lord from heaven, he has' allowed it to be recorded 
that his disciples wondered that he talked with a woman.' 
That his disciples did not wonder at his talking with a woman, 
but at his talking with a woman of Samaria, what simple 
reader of the gospel will fail to perceive ? (John iv. 27 ; com- 
pare verse 9). How many other passages in our Lord's life 
utterly refute this false monastic view of his character ! Who 
are said to have 'ministered to him?' 

We must add one or two extracts, — but they shall be passages 
of the more harmless sort. 

Holy virginity is no less a portion of Christianity than holy peni- 
tence ; and the denial of the virtue of the one most certainly impairs the 
full belief in the other. — Life of St. Gilbert, p. 49. 

The reader may not be prepared for the proof of this axiom — . 
' for the communion of saints and the forgiveness of sins lie 
close together in the Creed ' ! ! Again : 

They who deny the merit of virginity leave out a portion of Christian 
morals. . . . The Bible — this writer acknowledges — says nothing about 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 403 



monks and nuns ; but it says a great deal about prayer, and about tak- 
ing up the cross. It is quite true that the cross has sanctified domestic 
affections, by raising marriage to a dignity which it never possessed 
before ; and yet human affections are terrible things ; love is as strong 
and insatiable as death ; and how hard is it to love as though we loved 
not ; and to weep, as though we wept not ; and to laugh, as though we 
laughed not ! Happy are they to whom human affections are not all 
joy ; the mother has her cross as well as the nun, and it will be blessed 
to her. Happy they who have to tend the sick bed of a parent or a 
friend ; they need seek no further, they have their cross. Yet happiest 
of all is she who is marked out for ever from the world, whose slightest 
action assumes the character of adoration, because she is bound by a vow 
to her heavenly spouse, as an earthly bride is bound by the nuptial vow 
to her earthly lord. 

For ourselves we rest content with the Christian perfection 
of the Bible. According to the plain principles of that book, 
we believe that the most 4 enskyed and sainted nun' (in 
Shakspeare's beautiful words) is as far below, in true Christian 
perfection, we will say the mother of St. Augustine, or the 
wife who sucked the poison from her husband's wound, even, in 
due proportion, as he who went into the wilderness to him 
who £ went about doing good.' Who will compare the c fugitive 
and cloistered virtue ' of the recluse with that of the sister of 
charity ? Yet will the virginity of the latter weigh in the 
Evangelic balance one grain in comparison with her charity ? 

Another writer is not content with elevating the unnatural 
state, but must depreciate those natural affections, to be 6 void of 
which,' we have high authority to believe, is no safe condition. 

After casting our eyes on the holy rood, does it never occur to us to 
wonder how it can be possible to be saved in the midst of the endear- 
ments of a family, and the joys of domestic life? God forbid that any 
one should deny the possibility ! — but does it not at first sight require 
proof, that heaven can be won by a life spent in this quiet way ? — • 
Life of St. Stephen Harding, p. 113. 

We will tell this unhappy man that there is more true religion, 
more sense of (rod's goodness, more humble resignation to his 
chastening hand, from the sight of one living, or the grave of 
one dead child, than in years of fasting and flagellation. 

We repeat that we have not the least apprehension of the 

D D 2 



-404 . EELATION OP THE CLEKGrY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 



.ultimate, or even the extensive success of these doctrines here ; 
their only bad effect will be to make a few young men very 
miserable, very sour-tempered, and very arrogant ; and, on the 
other hand, they may perhaps prevent some early and imprudent 
marriages. 

But abroad, in the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church, 
murmurs both loud and deep are again heard against the law 
of celibacy. It is not only the priest Ronge, who has absolutely 
seceded from the Church of Rome, and appealed to the good 
-sense and truthfulness of Germany against the seamless coat 7 of 
our Lord, which, in the nineteenth century, the Archbishop of 
Treves thought fit to exhibit, and which, in the nineteenth cen- 
'tury, was visited by above a million of worshippers. The clergy 
-of Baden some years ago published a deliberate argument, to 
which a reply 8 was made by the late Professor Mohler, the author 
of the 4 Symbolik ;' a reply written with his usual ability and 
polemic skill. Even in his own Church, the arguments and 
authority of this distinguished logician have had little or no 
effect in suppressing these opinions : they are day after day gain- 
ing ground. But we may be sure that Mohler would be accepted 
'"by all moderate and learned Roman Catholic writers as in every 
'respect qualified to do justice to his cause. Mohler's great 
argument is, that the Church has the right not merely to lay 
"before those whom she exalts to the dignity of the priesthood, 
but to exact, as a qualification for that dignity, the highest 
ideal of Christianity. But this assumes the point at issue. If 
at be not the ideal of the Sacred Writings— if it be the ideal 
of a false philosophy not recognized by the Sacred Writings, 

7 Two German Professors at Bonn have published a curious tract on this seamless 
coat of Treves and the twenty other seamless coats, the history of which they have 
traced with true German perseverance and erudition. It is a calm disquisition in 
an excellent tone ; its historico-theological learning relieved by quiet irony. It is 
somewhat amusing to find that the Infallible Gregory XVI. issued a Letter, assert- 
ing the authenticity of the seamless coat of Argenteuil, not remembering that the 
infallible Leo X. had asserted the authenticity of that of Treves: while other in- 
fallible pontiffs have given their approbation to the list of relics in the church of 
St. John Lateran, where there is a third. ' Eom hat gesprochen,' say our Pro- 
fessors. 

j 8 The tract is reprinted in Mohler's Gcsammelte.Schriften, band i. pp. 177-267. 



Essay VII.] RELATION OE THE CLERGrY TO THE PEOPLE. 405- 

but almost universally dominant in the intellectual world, into 
which Christianity passed almost immediately after its first com- 
plete publication— and if that false philosophy be now utterly 
discarded from the human mind — the conclusion is inevitable. 

It may be assumed that the great ideal truth, which distin- 
guishes any system, will pervade that system throughout; that 
if not objectively prominent in every part, it shall be found in 
its depths, wherever we sound them ; that it will be, if not uni- 
formly and explicitly, perpetually implied ; that it shall be not 
casually and incidentally noticed, but fill that place which be- 
comes its importance ; and, above all, must be in perfect har- 
mony with the rest of the revelation. But for this principle, 
upon which the ideal dignity of celibacy rests, the monastics 
can refer only to two insulated and ambiguous passages in the 
whole New Testament. 9 

This is the more remarkable, if it was not a new truth, of 
which the primary conception dawned, as it were, upon the world 
under the new dispensation. Notions absolutely uncongenial 
with the state of the human mind might, according to the cus- 
tomary dealings of Divine Providence, have been introduced 
with caution, if we may so say, bordering on timidity ; but this 
would hardly be the case with questions which might seem to 
await a solemn and indisputable decision from the new teacher 
of righteousness. 

The great question of the superiority of the celibate and con- 
templative state over that of marriage and of active life— the 
philosophy or theology, whichever it may be called, which pro- 
scribed marriage, and exalted celibacy, as withdrawing the soul 
from the pollution of malignant matter,— had already made its 
way among the Jews both of Egypt and Palestine : it was the 
doctrine of the Essenes and Therapeuts?, who, even if we do 
not allow them to be the parents, were at least the types and 
the forerunners of Christian monachism. 

' We say two, because, though often quoted, the third (Rev. xiv. 4) is, to our 
judgement, clearly metaphorical: it is not physical pollution, but the pollution by 
idolatry which is meant. See Rosenmuller in loco, or the common Family Bible. 



406 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

That such tenets had already grown up among the Jews we 
have the historical testimony of both the two great Jewish 
writers of the times—of Josephus and Philo (to say nothing of 
Pliny and others)— testimony absolutely unquestionable. And 
that such tenets, so directly opposed to the law, the history, 
and the actual predominant state of Jewish feeling, should so 
have grown up, is in itself very extraordinary, and shows the 
wonderful power which these tenets possessed of seizing and 
enthralling the human mind. The Priesthood, the High Priest- 
hood itself was hereditary ; the Levites were in no way exempt 
from the great duty, in some respects the positive law, of con- 
tinuing their race ; throughout the Old Testament we have no 
trace of the sanctity of celibacy : barrenness in all women was 
a curse ; and this feeling (for who might not be mother of the 
Messiah?) still in general prevailed among the Jews. This 
part of the Essenian doctrine was the strongest proof of the 
growth of foreign opinions. This therefore was a point on 
which the new religion would, it might be expected, authori- 
tatively pronounce, if accordant with its design ; accept with 
distinct approval, define with precise limitations, make it in 
fact an integral and inseparable part of the faith. Such it was 
when it became the doctrine of the Church, after several cen- 
turies : it was then virtually and practically a part of the reli- 
gion. A Jovinian or Vigilantius of the fourth century might 
appeal to reason or to Scripture against it ; but even they 
would hardly deny that it was a dominant tenet in Chris- 
tendom. 

But even that highest sanction, our Lord's own conduct in 
the choice of his disciples, was wanting to this tenet. The 
chief of his apostles, St, Peter, certainly had no claim to this 
ideal perfection ; nor does there appear the least evidence in 
the Gospel, that up to a certain period, either by his language 
or by his preference of those who possessed this qualification, 
the Saviour had inculcated, or even suggested, any belief in its 
superior sanctity. The one occasion on which he spoke on the 
subject was that related in the 19th chapter of St. Matthew. 



Essay VII.] RELATION OE THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 407 

Questions had been brought before him relating to marriage 
and divorce. The purer and more severe morality of our Lord 
condemned without reserve that fatal facility of divorce which 
was permitted by the less rigid Pharisaic school. Adultery 
alone, according to his commandment, dissolved the holy and 
irrepealable marriage tie. But his disciples, bred, it should 
seem, under the laxer system, appear to have clung strangely 
to the easier doctrine. Their doubts assumed the following 
form :— < If this be the case, if marriage be so inflexible, so 
inexorable ; if the wife is to be dismissed for no lighter cause, 
for no other vice, men would be wise not to load themselves 
with this intolerable burthen.' To this our Lord appears to 
reply :— All persons are not capable of refraining from marriage. 
Some are especially designated by the divine will for this 
peculiar distinction; some are born disqualified for marriage ; 
others are made so by human art ; others, from some religious 
motives, disqualify themselves. For all sound interpreters 
concur in taking this disqualification not in its literal sense, 
but as a voluntary abstinence from marriage. At first sight it 
might seem a natural interpretation, as our Lord speaks in the 
present tense— there are, not there will be, those who in expec- 
tation of the coming of the Messiah (for the Kingdom of 
Heaven's sake) abstain altogether from marriage— that he might 
in fact have alluded to those of the Essenes, or the other her- 
mits, who, according to Josephus, had retired to solitary cells 
in the desert ; and in them the great dominant expectation of 
the coming Messiah was at its sublimest height . The absorption 
of the soul, as it were, in this act of faith ; the entire devotion 
of the being, with the sacrifice of the ordinary ties as well as 
avocations of life, to the contemplation of the kingdom of 
God, was the lofty privilege of but this chosen few. But if we 
include the future sense, and with most interpreters give a 
kind of prophetic significance to our Lord's words, the meaning 
will be, that some men for the promotion of the kingdom of 
God, the propagation of the Gospel, will abstain from marriage; 
they will willingly make this sacrifice if they are thereby dis- 



408 RELATION OF THE CLEKGrY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

encumbered of earthly ties, and more able to devote their whole 
souls to the grand object of their mission. Bat it is this lofty 
sense of duty, in which lies the sublimity of the sacrifice, not 
necessarily in any special dignity of the sacrifice itself, except- 
ing m so far as it may be more hard to flesh and blood than 
other trials. He whom duty calls, and who receives power from 
on high (he that is able to receive it let Mm receive it) is by 
this as by every other sacrifice for the cause, and through the 
love of Christ, thereby fulfilling the ideal of Christianity- 
which is the annihilation of self for the promotion of the Gos- 
pel and the good of man. 

This is to us unquestionably the impression which is conveyed 
by our Lord's words, considered with relation to his times, and 
without the bias given by the long-fostered admiration of celi- 
bacy during certain ages of the Church. And in this view the 
language of our Lord is strictly coincident with the second 
passage^ that of St. Paul to the Corinthians. This chapter 
(1st Epist. vii.) was written in answer to certain questions re- 
lating to marriage, proposed to him by some of the Corinthian 
Christians. It does not appear in what spirit or by whom those 
questions were submitted to St. Paul ; whether from a Judai- 
zmg party, who, like many of their countrymen, might hold 
the absolute duty of marriage at a certain time of life ; or in 
the spirit of that incipient Gnosticism which the apostles had 
to encounter in other sects who altogether proscribed marriage. 
Paul was unmarried ; other apostles, St. Peter himself (ch. ix. 
5) were not only married but accompanied by their wives. The' 
language of St. Paul' is something like a vindication of his 
own course ; though he asserts the advantage, perhaps the 
merit, most undoubtedly not the absolute perfection of celibacy 
he excepts no class from the right, or even the duty of marriage' 
if they have neither the gift nor the power of continency. But 
St. Paul himself returns to the main question, that of virginity; 

J 'A 0W r Ceming th t thl ' ngS WhGre0f ye Wr0te ™ t0 rae : * is good for a man 
not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have hi* 
own wife, and let every woman have her own husband' 



Essay VIL] RELATION OP THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 409 



and in terms which appear to us clear and distinct, instead of 
a general and universal precept of Christianity, limits his own 
words to temporary and local admonition, called forth by some 
peculiar exigency of the times. 4 1 suppose, therefore, that 
this is good for the present distress ; I say that it is good for a 
man so to be.' The meaning of these words, 8ia rrjv ivsaraxrav 
avdjfcrjv, is the key to the whole passage. Mohler, it is true, 
endeavours to get over this difficulty, by an interpretation, to 
which we will venture to say no such scholar could be reduced 
but by hard necessity. He interprets the svsarwaav avdyfcrjv 
as what is commonly called, in theological language, concupis- 
cence ; and as that is perpetual and inextinguishable in human 
nature, so he would infer the perpetuity and universality of the 
precept. But this notion is hardly worthy of refutation. 
What then was this 6 distress f ' It was something instant — 
either some actually pressing calamity, or one imminent and 
inevitable. But the Corinthian Church, it is said, was not 
then under any immediate apprehension of persecution. Locke, 
no doubt among the most sober and cautious interpreters, does 
not scruple to suppose that the apostle had a prophetic antici- 
pation of the Neronian persecution. But even those who reject 
this explanation must admit that it would not need either the 
sagacity or the experience of Paul to perceive that the state of 
the Christians, opposed as they were to all the religious and all 
the political prejudices of the world, was one of perpetual dan- 
ger. Already, even in Corinth, tumults had arisen out of their 
progress in the public favour ; already they had been before 
the tribunal of Grallio ; and though the Eoman governor then 
treated them with haughty indifference, and their enemies at 
that time were only their compatriots the Jews, yet it was im- 
possible not to foresee that their further success must lead to 
some fearful crisis. Their whole life was at war with the world; 
and although a quiet Christian community might not always be 
exposed to the same perils as the apostle, yet they could not 
but be under constant apprehension ; distress, if not actually 
present, was perpetually imminent. 



410 EELATION OF THE CLEKGrY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

But there is a singular likeness in the expression of St. Paul 
to that of a passage in St. Luke's Gospel, which may perhaps 
lead us to a more definite sense — sarai ydp dvdyKrj /jusydXrj inl 
ttjs yrjs (ch. xxi. 23). This is part of the awful prophecy, in 
which the destruction of Jerusalem and the second coming of 
the Messiah are mingled up in terrific and almost inseparable 
images. There can be no doubt that this second coming of 
Christ was perpetually present to the minds of the first Chris- 
tians : the Apostles themselves were but slowly emancipated 
from this primary Jewish conception of the immediate and 
visible kingdom of the Messiah. St. Paul was obliged to allay 
the terrors of his disciples, who had inferred from his ordinary 
preaching that it was clearly and inevitably at hand (2 Thess. 
ii. 2). Certain signs were to precede that coming, and the 
believer is reminded that to Grod time is nothing. But still 
the images are left in the thoughts of the believer in all their 
unmitigated terrors ; and they were renewed, or renewed them- 
selves, at every period of peril or of persecution. Even as our 
Lord mingled up, or allowed to remain mingled, those fearful 
predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem with the images 
which shadowed forth the Last Day, so his apostles blended the 
uncertainty of life— its peculiar uncertainty to those who at 
any time might become objects of persecution — with the final 
consummation in the second coming of the Lord. Awe was 
perhaps not always precise and distinct in the language in 
which this truth was expressed it was still less so in the in- 
terpretation of that language by the hearer. But it was quite 
enough to justify the expression, the present distress, the 
ivsarwaav avdyfcrjv, at least during the apostolic age. With 
this view the words 6 for the time is short' (is drawing closely 
in), otl 6 icaipos ovvsg-toXijlsvos to Xolttov sanv, and the whole of 
the verses from the 29th to the 38th, irapdysi yap to ct^/lwi tov 
Koafxov tovtov, not fully rendered by < the fashion of this world 
passeth away,' remarkably coincide. 

It is not, then, the preoccupation alone of the marriage state 
which might divert either husband or wife from religious 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 411 

thoughts — the conflict between the desire to please each other 
and perfect devotion to religion — but the anxieties likewise, 
the trembling of deep love for others rather than themselves, 
which then rendered the unmarried life the safer condition. 
It is not merely a carefulness on account of the ordinary trials 
and uncertainties of life from which the Apostle desires to keep 
them free — but a peculiar carefulness, belonging to that especial 
time and to their peculiar circumstances. The trumpet may 
sound at any hour. The Christian soldier should be girt and 
ready, unincumbered with unnecessary ties ; with no fears, no 
anxieties but for himself ; no bonds to break but those of life. 
On the whole, in short, this is neither a general law of Chris- 
tianity ; nor even its perfect ideal, though attainable by few, 
an eminent and transcendant gift and privilege, which shows its 
first principles in their most full development. It is excep- 
tional in time, place, person, circumstance. The merit is 
not intrinsic, but dependent on foreign and peculiar accidents. 
If marriage disqualifies in the slightest degree for greater use- 
fulness—if marriage withdraws the mind from holiness— then 
it must be sacrificed, as the right hand or the right eye is to be 
sacrificed ; but as the maimed man is not better than the whole, 
so celibacy in itself has neither superior dignity nor superior 
sanctity. 

Who can point out any thing in the earliest Christian insti- 
tutions which in any way secludes the virgins as a separate and 
higher class from Christian wives and Christian mothers; which 
distinguishes to his advantage the unmarried from the married 
apostle; which sets the unmarried Paul above the married 
Cephas? — Compare the significant caution of the Apostle's 
expression with any passage taken at random from Basil, 
Ambrose, or any of the writers on these subjects in the fourth 
century ; and who will fail to perceive that it is with them not 
merely the development (the favourite phrase) of a recognized 
principle, but a new element, predominating over and absorbing 
the opinions and feelings of our nature ? This is still more 
conclusive, if we observe certain positive and direct precepts of 



412 KELATION OF THE CLEKGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

St. Paul. Not merely are there several passages, where, if this 
notion was present to the Apostle's mind, either as a necessary 
part of Christianity, or as its highest aim and prerogative, it 
must have forced itself into his language— yet we have nothing 
of it. Not merely is he on such occasions profoundly silent, 
but his general precepts on the other side are clear and unam- 
biguous. If we might suppose the Apostle to have contem- 
plated in any quarter the peaceful and permanent establishment 
of the Gospel ; if anywhere he deliberately organized a Church 
with its ministry, and described the qualifications of a settled 
teacher, of a separate clergy ; it is in that calm epistle to Titus, 
in which he consigns to him the establishment of the Church in 
Crete. Throughout this Epistle it is the Christian family 
which St. Paul seems to delight in surveying in all its blame- 
lessness and harmony. But is either the Elder or the Bishop a 
being standing alone and above this household virtue ? He is 
its very model and pattern. Desperate ingenuity may explain 
away any passage in Scripture ; but none can suffer greater 
violence than does that simple text, ' the bishop must be the 
husband of one wife,' when it is construed as meaning anything 
but that, in salutary contrast to the habits of a licentious time, 
he is to be a husband of unimpeachable purity, even as he is a 
man of unimpeachable sobriety. 2 Not is this a casual and 
isolated expression. In the fuller statement of the Epistle to 
Timothy— in what we may fairly consider to be St. Paul's 
abstract ideal of a bishop, there is not merely the same ex- 
pressive silence as to the obligation, 6r even the excellence of 
celibacy, but again we find his marriage distinctly taken for 
granted (1 Tim. iii. 2). Here, again, not merely is he held up 
as the exemplary husband but the exemplary parent ; his family 
seems a matter of course. He < is to be one that ruleth 

a Chrysostom's commentary on this passage is in these words, in loc. t. iv. p. 387. 
ed. Sav.: rivos eVe/cej/ Kal rbv roiovrov els ^<rou irapdyei : eV^ro/^: robs alperiKovs 
tovs rhv ydixov dia^KXovras, Se lK ub S 8n rb wpaypa ovk Utiv evayes, aAA' oSra> t'^lop 
S>s /xer' avro'v Uvaadai Kal <?tt1 'dyiov avafiaiveiv Q P 6vov. He proceeds to condemn 
severely second marriages. 



Essay VII.] KELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 413 

well his own house, having his children in subjection with all 
gravity.' 3 

There is no doubt that the false Philosophy or Theology — 
the common parent of Gnosticism, of Monasticism, and of all 
the high notions on celibacy — was at least in its elements 
widely disseminated, and could not but be known to St. Paul ; 
yet not merely was it not admitted, but repudiated by him 
with remarkable vehemence. Forbidding to marry and absti- 
nence from certain meats (1 Tim. iv. 3) is the distinctive mark 
of some sect, either already beginning to develop itself, or 
prophetically foreshown, as in direct antagonism to the Gospel. 
The Gnostic sects in the second century followed out these 
principles to extreme extravagance ; some Encratites are said 
absolutely to have proscribed marriage, and to have abstained, 
with a Budhist aversion, from every kind of food which had 
had life. But with a higher wisdom Paul did not, like the 
later uninspired preachers of the Church, receive the philosophy 
and attempt to avoid the conclusions ; incorporate the primary 
doctrine of the Gnostics with the thoughts and feelings, and 
proscribe its excesses. There is a singular vacillation in some 
of the earlier local and particular councils condemning those 
who but carried out admitted principles to their legitimate 
consequences ; now depreciating, now asserting, the dignity of 
marriage; establishing not merely different laws and a different 
discipline for the clergy and laity, but a different morality, a 
different estimate of moral excellence. And this was the first 
great silent and almost universal change which grew upon the 
spirit of Christianity ; and it commended itself by some sym- 
pathies with the Christian heart, to which we cannot be sur- 

3 Mr. H. Drumraond, who is so strikingly right when he is right, thus comments 
on the text 1 Tim. iii. 2-5 : — ' Whence the judgement of God plainly is, that wherever 
there is a body of clergy who have no families to govern, there is a body eminently 
incapacitated from guiding the Church of God ; albeit it might be wise and 
merciful in a bishop not to ordain any missionary or evangelist for heathen lands 
-who had a wife and family to care for.' — Abstract Principles of Revealed Religion, 
p. 228. 



414 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII, 

prised if that heart should yield with unsuspecting passion :-- 
by its high self-abnegation ; its entire concentration of the soul 
on God ; its terrors and its raptures ; its communion with the 
invisible ; even its detachment from a world in which happiness, 
security, as well as virtue in those dark and degenerate times' 
could only be found in seclusion. Yet was it directly opposed 
to that practical Catholic religion of our Lord and his Apostles, 
who did not promulgate Christianity for a sect, an order, a 
certain definite section of the human race ; nor even reserved 
its high places for a few lonely contemplatives ; but revealed 
a perpetual faith for all mankind— for mankind active, pro- 
gressive, going through every phase of civilization ; if not 
in continual advancement, yet constantly aiming at advance- 
ment. 

The Scriptural— let us be permitted to use the word Pauline 
—ideas of evil and its antagonist Christian perfection, are 
widely different from those of monastic Christianity. In St. 
Paul the evil principle is moral degeneracy; in the other, the 
moral is blended up with some vague notion of physical corrup- 
tion ; the body itself, as formed of malignant matter— of matter 
inherently antagonist to God— is irreclaimably corrupt. In 
the one system the aim is the suppression of the evil of our 
nature ; in the other, it is the suppression of our nature itself. 
In one it is a sin, in the other absolute perfection, to be with- 
out natural affection. In the one, females make an important 
part of the mingled community ; in the other, the line between 
the sexes, as if two hostile races which cannot approximate 
without pollution, is sternly drawn. In the one it is the puri- 
fication—in the other the proscription, the utter extinction of 
bodily emotion which is virtue. In the one it is the unlawful 
—in the other it is the physical act of procreation of children, 
which is sin. Paul will keep his body under; Antony the 
hermit paralyse its functions. In the one case sanctification 
was possible ; in the other, extirpation was absolutely necessary. 
The tenet in truth of the resurrection of the body, though that 
body was to be glorified in the Resurrection, might almost seem 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 415 

a protest against this dualistic theory. Nor is it any answer 
that the monastic churches, who thus mingled foreign concep- 
tions with the primitive doctrines of the Grospel, still retained 
that essential tenet of the faith ; it was a necessary consequence 
of the fusion of two systems, that in many parts they should be 
irreconcilable and contradictory. The mystic Quietism, which 
in every age of the Church has been the extreme height to 
which this kind of Christianity has soared, and soared with such 
sublimity as to attract some of the noblest and purest of men, 
has been but the Platonic, and more mystic than the Platonic 
— the Indian triumph of mind over matter ; the absolute anni- 
hilation of the physical being. 

We have never seen that Protest of the Baden clergy against 
which Mohler directed his laborious refutation ; but the Fri- 
bourg professors, who took the lead in the controversy, must 
not merely have been guilty of several errors as to dates and 
facts (which Mohler triumphantly adduces) — they must have 
argued their cause with feebleness bordering on treachery, if 
they abandoned the ground of the three first centuries without 
making a firm and decisive stand. They cannot, surely, have 
omitted the strong passages of Clement of Alexandria, which 
assert the fact of the marriage of the Apostles, and vindicate 
that of the clergy ; the long line of married bishops which 
might be produced from the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius 
alone, with some even from the later annals of Socrates and 
Sozomen : the direct admission of its legality by Athanasius 
(' Epist. ad Dracontium ') ; the absence of prohibitory terms 
even in Basil and Augustine. The assertion of Jerome that it 
was the universal practice in the East and Egypt, as well as at 
Eome, to ordain only unmarried clergy, or those who had 
ceased to exercise the privilege of husbands, must be qualified 
by a great number of known exceptions. In the West itself 
that which was first an usage, more or less rigidly observed, 
was first hardened into a law by Pope Siricius (a.d. 385). 
This decree was probably called forth by the progress of the 
opinions of Jovinian, who, as did Vigilantius, strove in vain 



416 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 



to stem the overbearing tendencies of their age ; and from that 
time it may be considered as forming part of the discipline of 
the Western Church — a discipline theoretically maintained, 
but in practice constantly violated in almost every part of 
Europe. 

The East and the West, as is well known, came to a decided 
separation on this great point of ecclesiastical discipline. 
Either the usage was by no means so general in the East 
during the fourth century as Jerome intimates, or it fell into 
desuetude, or was so repugnant to the clergy that, at a later 
period, the council in Trullo, which finally regulated the 
Eastern practice, demanded celibacy only from the bishop. 
Such has continued to be the practice in the Greek Church. 
The reasons for this difference seem to lie on the surface. 
In the East the monks were more secluded within themselves ; 
they dwelt aloof from general society ; they did not spread as 
in the West, particularly the later orders, through every rank ; 
nor wander abroad as apostles and missionaries, and later as 
mendicants and preachers, into every corner of the earth. 
They did not indeed always remain in their calm contemplative 
solitude ; they were fierce partisans in religious, sometimes in 
civil warfare ; they rushed from their caves in Mtria, or their 
cells on the side of Athos, into the streets of Alexandria and 
Constantinople — and by their surpassing ferocity sometimes 
almost shamed the worst cruelty of the rabble. 4 But they 
acted thus in bodies, and on occasions : they were not the 
perpetual, busy rivals of the clergy in every district and in 
every parish. But the chief cause was that there was no 
Papacy — no power which could enforce a law contrary to the 
general sentiment of mankind. Justinian, a sort of caliph, who 
almost openly assumed and undoubtedly exercised a religious 
as well as civil supremacy — who legislated for the clergy, for 
their mode of election, their position and duties, as freely as 

4 Is this what is called ' stout-hearted defence of the orthodox faith,' which, with 
other monastic virtues, reigned among the quietly succeeding generations of the 
Egyptian cenobites and solitaries? — Life of St. Adamnan, p. 120. 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLEEG-Y TO THE PEOPLE. 41 7 

with respect to any civil arrangements of the empire — was 
disposed to limit rather than favour the celibacy of the clergy. 
But so completely had the lawful marriage of the clergy become 
a tenet of the Grreek Church that, in the disputes between the 
Eastern and Western Churches in the ninth and tenth centuries, 
it was one of the points most bitterly bandied to and fro as a 
mark of orthodoxy or heterodoxy. 

In the West, we have said, from the time of Pope Siricius the 
celibacy of the clergy was the law of the Church ; but it was a 
law which was so opposed to the common feelings of mankind, 
that it was for some centuries eluded, defied, and even resisted 
by main force. In the North of Europe, in England during 
parts of the Saxon period, in Germany, if we receive as author- 
ity the indignant declamations of the high advocates of 
celibacy, the breach was at least as common as the observance 
of the rule. If it was an evil, it was an evil of vast extent, and 
inveterate in the manners of the clergy, against which Hilde- 
brand for the first time wielded the thunders of the Vatican 
with much success. Even in Italy the Lombard clergy, es- 
pecially those of Milan, boldly asserted their liberty of mar- 
riage : they declared that they had a tradition from St. Ambrose 
himself (whom the Church of Milan professed to venerate with 
almost as much honour as Eome did St. Peter) which allowed 
them the same latitude as prevailed in the Greek Church. It 
needed the sword of a fierce crusader, Herlembard, to hew 
asunder the bonds which united the clergy to their wives, 
whom it was the policy of the hostile party to brand with the 
odious name of concubines, while they retaliated on the 
unmarried clergy by far more odious appellations. But the 
history of this European strife is yet to be written with 
philosophic equity and Christian tenderness. On the Milanese 
chapter we have two remarkable authorities, the historians 
Arnulphus and Landulphus, who were partisans of the married 
clergy — the most curious perhaps of all Muratori's curious 
collections of mediaeval history. 

Hildebrand, a wise man in his gener'ation, knew that the 

E E 



418 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 



power of the Pope through the clergy and over the clergy 
depended on their celibacy ; and for that reason alone, to the 
extent that the Papacy was beneficial to mankind, so was the 
celibacy of the clergy. But at what sacrifice this advantage 
was bought can only be estimated by a long historical disquisi- 
tion, which for the present at least we must decline. 

But, even in the Church of Eome, it may be said, for other 
times, other manners : — the celibacy of the clergy, according to 
all their best writers, is a question of discipline, not of doctrine. 
It rests on ecclesiastical authority, and is repealable by eccle- 
siastical authority. Nor is this our concern. With St. Paul, 
with our Lord himself, as we humbly and reverently believe, 
the whole is a simple question of usefulness (we take the word 
in no vulgar or debasing sense) to the cause of Grod and man. 
By Christendom, without the pale of Eome, the relation of the 
clergy to the people must be considered entirely with regard to 
their fitness for their high calling — the general fitness of the 
whole order, not of an individual here and there designated for 
some special service, or called upon by some particular exigences 
to isolate himself from the common condition of his order. 
Take first the effect of celibacy upon the character of man. 
Mohler has drawn out this argument with such singular 
fairness and beauty that we are surprised that he did not 
convince himself. We are really astonished as we survey the 
vague and false metaphysics by which he attempts to refute his 
own better understanding, and, we are almost inclined to 
suspect, the remonstrance of his own heart. 

The power of selfishness (selbst-sucht), which is inwoven with our 
whole being, is altogether broken by marriage ; and by degrees love, 
becoming more and more pure, takes its place. When the man marries 
he gives himself up entirely to another being ; in this affair of life he 
first goes out of himself, and inflicts the first deadly wound on his 
egotism. By every child with which his marriage is blessed Nature 
renews the same attack on his selfishness ; the man lives ever less for 
himself, and more, even without being distinctly conscious of it, for 
others ; in the same degree as the family increases the selfishness dimi- 
nishes ; and his heart expands out of its former narrow exclusiveness. 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 419 



What agony during the sickness of the wife ; what sadness when the 
children are in danger ! Through all this the feeling becomes more 
pure, more holy. As his income is liberally dispensed among many, so 
his whole inward life is shared among them. This family life is the 
only strong ground from which the life of the individual becomes more 
public, i.e. his love becomes more full and expansive. How many new 
relationships and connections are not partly the immediate, partly the 
more remote consequence of marriage ; in the love to the wife all her 
relations are blended ; by and bye the sons and daughters form new tie& , 
and in the like proportion the heart of the father expands. The canon 
law wisely prohibited in rude times the marriage of relations, even in 
very distant degrees, in order to enlarge that circle of connections which 
to uncivilised and rude natures, which were always disposed to draw 
back within themselves, M r as extremely difficult. After all this neces- 
sary training, the moral strength has sufficient energy to love the native 

land (das vaterland) and then mankind. But the unmarried, who 

without observing these gradations indicated by nature, would soar at 
once to the utmost height, in fact never emancipates himself from this 
selfishness; he attempts the flight of Icarus, which :is sure to fail ; as 
one who from the lowest step of a ladder would with one spring rise to 
the fiftieth, does not only get no higher than the lowest, but sinks power- 
less to the ground, and perhaps has not the courage to make a new 
attempt : thus is it with the unmarried. And so reason shows un- 
answerably what doubtful experience leaves uncertain, that want of 
feeling and selfishness necessarily cling to an unmarried life. — Werke, 
vol. i. p. 249. 

And Mohler's reply to this is a subtle paradox, that the love 
of wife and children is but disguised selfishness ; that in them 
we love but ourselves : as if friendship, patriotism, we venture 
to say religion itself, may not by the same argument be reduced 
to pure selfishness. Grod has so knit together our temporal and 
eternal interests, that it is really impossible, however our 
language may assume a lofty tone, or we may endeavour 
to withdraw our thoughts into a higher order of things, 
that we should altogether lose sight of the ; reward that is set 
before us.' 

But is the language of experience so uncertain on this point ? 
Is it not an axiom confirmed by all history, that those who are 
most severe to themselves are apt to be most severe to others ? 
Where did persecution ever find its most willing lictors — its 

E E 2 



420 EELATION OP THE CLERGrY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 



most merciless executioners ? Was it not in the convent ? 
Those that are nightly flogging themselves are least scrupulous 
in applying the scourge ; and it is too often he that would suffer 
death for the faith who would inflict death. We speak of the 
system, and we appeal to history. No doubt many a meek 
hermit has dwelt aloof, who, with his Budhist aspirations 
towards absorption into the Deity, felt the Budhist sensitiveness 
with regard to everything having life. In many cloisters the 
produce of the sweat of monkish brows has been distributed in 
lavish charity to the poor. In many more, during times of 
religious peace, and when no ecclesiastical passions were called 
forth, their boundless hospitality, their gentle habits, have 
spread, as it were, an atmosphere of love and holiness around 
them. In some, as in the Benedictines of France for instance, 
that best praise of learning — its tendency to soften the manners 
— has been exemplified in the highest degree. But on the 
great general principle we fearlessly appeal to the whole annals 
of the Church. Perhaps the monkish institutes should have 
the excuse, or the palliation, that they were composed in hard 
times for hard men. But what sentences of unfeeling, un- 
mitigated, remorseless cruelty do they contain — what delight 
do they seem to have in torturing the most sensitive fibres of 
the heart — in searing the most blameless emotions of human 
nature ! And we must take the freedom to say, that in all the 
semi-monkish, or rather ultra-monkish literature, which is now 
poured out upon Protestant England with such rapidity, besides 
the arrogance, there is a hardness, a harshness, an incipient 
cruelty of disposition, which in such gentle and Christian hearts 
as we know to be among the writers, can only be the effect of a 
bad and unchristian system. They sternly compel themselves 
to theologic hatred. Their biographies are strangely at issue 
with their motto — 'Mansueti hereditabunt terram :' — the meek 
Becket ! — the humble Innocent III. ! From this text the 
teacher even vindicates an interdict by which a whole people 
was consigned, as far as the privation of most of the means of 
grace, to everlasting damnation for the sins of their rulers ! 



Essay VII.] EELATION OF THE CLEEGY TO THE PEOPLE. 421 

This spirit, we grieve to say, is not confined to one class of their 
writings. We have read, for instance, high admiration of that 
sanguinary saint, Cyril of Alexandria. If Laud, we should say, 
their great hero, or rather confessor, had had a wife and 
children, he would neither have cut off Prynne's ears, nor lost 
his own head. 

On the general theory we will go further. They are best 
suited to minister to the sorrows of men who have been tried 
by those sorrows — 

Haud ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco. 

It is not in the cell— it is not even in the home of the unmar- 
ried pastor— that deep sympathy is to be taught for the afflicted 
parent or bereaved father. 

He talks to me who never had a child. 

Take the gentlest village cure— a man by nature of the kind- 
liest heart, and that heart softened by constant study of the 
Bible and books of quiet devotion— heightened, if you will, 
by the contemplation of His image on the cross, < whose sorrow 
surpassed all human sorrow'— take him in age and personal 
familiarity the parent of his flock— yet there is one school in 
which his barren heart has not been taught ; and that school 
will give more real experience, more skill in healing the 
wounds of others, more patient sympathy, more truth, and 
therefore more eloquence of language, than years of secluded 
study, or even of actual intercourse with the untried ills of 
life. 

In our Church, and in all churches which have rejected the 
celibacy of the clergy, there are some advantages which in our 
present social state cannot be appreciated too highly. In 
thousands of parishes the clergyman's wife is his best curate. 
She is not merely useful as multiplying the occasions of mutual 
kindness, but as an additional almoner, as the best instructress 
in the female school. Throughout the country there are 
thousands of females with all the gentleness and activity of 



422 KELATION OF THE CLEKGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

sisters of charity, with the superior good sense and tenderness 
of mothers of families, ministering to the necessities and afflic- 
tions of the poor as females alone can minister. This quiet 
and noiseless system of beneficence is so completely a matter 
of course that it is often entirely overlooked in such discussions. 

Even in modern missions the married will be not less stead- 
fast, or more safe in his high calling than the unmarried. 
There will be exceptions to this rule, but still they are excep- 
tions. Our modern missions are rarely among fierce and war- 
like tribes, such as were encountered by the apostles of the 
faith in the earlier and middle ages of Christianity. Among 
such lawless savages a female, besides the actual hardships 
under which her feebler frame might have sunk, must have 
been an object of deep and incessant anxiety : her perpetual 
exposure, unprotected, to worse evils than pain and death, 
would proscribe at once such enfeebling, such disqualifying 
companionship. There might, indeed, be imagined a female 
of that rare loftiness and imposing character which would have 
appealed to the awe and sanctity which the ancient Germans 
attached to the feminine character, accompanying the first 
missionary on the banks of the Elbe, or in the depths of the 
forest: a Christian Velleda might have gone by the side of 
St. Boniface, and assisted rather than embarrassed his great 
work. Female influence has been in various ways of no small 
moment in the conversion of the heathen ; but in general 
the missionary must have confronted danger alone, and set 
forth unladen with a venture at once so precious and so in- 
secure, upon his perilous voyage. But in modern missions 
there are rarely hardships which may not be borne by the 
missionary's wife as well as by himself; and his labours, if not 
actually promoted, are rarely impeded by such a companion. 
Tahiti at first would have been a delicate mission for an 
unmarried man : most, if not all, of the pious men who have 
laboured throughout Polynesia have been accompanied by 
their wives ; and the Abbe Dubois might be quoted on certain 
dangers to which unmarried missionaries were especially ex- 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 423 

posed in India. Nearly all successful missionaries in the present 
day are settlers in the land where they have gone to propagate 
the faith, not itinerant and adventurous wanderers from tribe 
to tribe. Their family binds them still more closely to the 
scene of their labours. But these questions lie rather beyond 
our present consideration. We speak of the fixed resident 
clergy of an Established Church— each in his bishopric, his 
ecclesiastical dignity, or his parish, holding an important 
position, and that position recognized and defined, m the social 
system. 

Now we believe that the silent influence of one well-regulated 
family-as every candid person of whatever creed or party will 
admit that of the English clergyman usually to be-not ab- 
staining from social intercourse, but not its slave, with the 
great Christian virtues of ordinary life quietly displayed, to 
have been, and to be, of far greater importance than many 
social influences of ^which more is thought and said. Some 
will, no doubt, have the foolish vanity of vying in expensive 
habits with their wealthier neighbours ; some will be too 
much addicted even now to field-sports; others may be too 
much absorbed in the care and in the advancement of their 
families ; but if pomp and profuse expenditure be wrong m a 
churchman, we are inclined to think that the English clergy 
inherit whatever can be traced among them of such habits 
from their predecessors, the unmarried clergy of former times. 
We doubt whether the wives and families of modern deans 
consume more, or more unprofitable as far as regards the in- 
terests of religion, of the wealth of the Church, than the re- 
tainers, and apparelled steeds, and sumpter mules, of the lordly 
abbots of other days. The love of field-sports comes lineally 
down from those times when the prior or the secular priest 
might be seen with his hawk on his fist, or his hound m a 
leash- and however the nursery windows of our episcopal 
palaces, and so forth, may offend the architectural vision of 
Mr Pugin, we are inclined to think that their withdrawal 
from the secular business, which, though much of it was of 



424 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

necessity forced upon them, we do not find that they were too 
eager to decline, will give our clergy at least as much time as 
is usually devoted to their domestic concerns. If those do- 
mestic concerns are regulated according to St. Paul's precept, 
they are not merely beneficial to society as patterns of the 
holier and gentler virtues, but the growth of well-conducted 
Christian families is perpetually infusing into the mingled 
mass of society a leaven of sound, honourable, and religious 
principle. How much of the good old household virtue of 
England is due to this silent influence! How ill could 
we spare it in our present shifting and conflicting state of 
society ! 

Other considerations are closely connected with this great 
expansion of Christian families throughout the land. That 
which in feudal times would have been almost an unmitigated 
evil, an hereditary clergy, is now, partially as it exists, of great 
advantage. The families of the clergy furnish a constant 
supply of young men, trained at least by early respect and 
attachment, if not by deep and home-bred piety, for the ser- 
vice of the Church ; and yet not bearing that undue proportion 
to those who spring from the gentry, from other professions, 
the higher tradesmen, or others, as to form anything like a 
caste. In these days of crowded competition for every occupa- 
tion, at least every occupation held in respect, their places 
might be supplied ; but, if they were, we doubt whether, on 
the whole, by persons equally adapted for their station. 

And as the moral and social, we are fully persuaded the 
religious, influence likewise of a married clergy is not only 
more extensive and lasting but of a more pure and practical 
cast. Jesuit morality would have been indignantly and in- 
stinctively rejected by a married clergy; they would have per- 
ceived at once its deep and deleterious operation on all the 
first principles of active life. Even cases of conscience have 
gone out of use in the English Church ; and though some of 
our great writers (as Jer. Taylor, in his 4 Ductor Dubitantium') 
applied their wonderful powers of mind to the science of 



Essay VII.] RELATION OE THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 425 

casuistry, honest English good sense, and English practical 
religion, felt with Bishop Butler, 

That in all ordinary cases we see intuitively at first view what is our 
duty, what is the honest part. That which is called considering what 
is our duty in a particular case is very often nothing else but endeavour- 
ing to explain it away. Thus those courses which, if men would fairly 
attend to the dictates of their own consciences, they would see to be 
corruption, excess, oppression, uncharitableness ; these are refined upon 
—things were so and so circumstantiated— great difficulties are raised 
about fixing bounds and degrees; and thus every moral obligation 
whatever may be evaded. Here is scope, I say, for an unfair mind 
to explain away every moral obligation, to itself. —Bp. Butler, Ser- 
mon vii. 

There are other— the worst parts of this immoral morality — 
from which the being husbands and fathers would be an abso- 
■ lute security. What husband and father could have published 
what bishops in neighbouring countries have published within 
these few years ? Must he not have been compelled to conceal 
from his wife and children that which he sent forth with his 
name into the world ? 

Shall we offend if we say that the secrets of fraudulent 
miracle would neither be safe, nor would they, we are persuaded, 
ever have been practised to a great extent under female con- 
fidence or that of a family? Men will hazard untruths before 
the world for certain objects, which they would not (so sacred 
is truth to the unperverted heart of man) before their own 
children. The cloister has always been the school, the workshop, 
of these impostures ; they have been encouraged by a clergy 
standing aloof from the world, bound together by what has seemed 
a common interest, and even by mutual rivalry. The more the 
clergy are segregated from the world, the stronger the corpo- 
rate spirit ; and it would not be difficult to show from history, 
that where one of these false miracles has been wrought 
for the sake of Christ and his religion, twenty have been 
wrought for the separate power, authority, or estimation of 
the clergy. 

But the celibacy of the clergy, it is -argued, is the great 



426 RELATION OF THE CLEKGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

guarantee for the independence of the clergy on the State. 
6 So long,' writes Mohler, ' as it nourished in the Church, it was 
a living protest against the Church permitting itself to be lost 
in the State, even for this reason, because celibacy will for 
ever hold fast the opposition between Church and State, and 
for ever prevent the merging of the former in the latter ; it 
will prevent the secularization of the Church, and uninter- 
ruptedly frustrate the mistaken attempts formerly begun by 
some particular Church rulers to subject the State to the 
Church.' Mohler is too much of a Grerman to be a Hildebran- 
dine, like some of our modern English writers. But we have 
an importunate and troublesome propensity to inquire the 
distinct and practical meaning of terms, even though they pass 
current among writers of the highest authority. 4 The indepen- 
dence of the Church ' has a lofty and commanding sound ; it 
appeals to generous and disinterested emotions ; it seems to be 
a calm and dignified assertion that Grod is to be obeyed rather 
than man — that religious are to be predominant over temporal 
motives, eternity over time. Erastianism again is a word of 
sinister and ill-sounding import ; it must contain some dire, 
latent heresy. But what does it mean ? What sense does it 
now bear to Statesmen or to Churchmen who are most con- 
scientiously determined to carry right principles into firm and 
consistent action ? In plain truth, all our theories of the rela- 
tion of Church and State, of the Unity of the Church — whether 
with excellent Dr. Arnold in some unexplained and inexplicable 
manner we make the State the Church — or, like other high- 
minded and high-toned writers, we keep them as distinct and 
antagonist powers — utterly break down when we attempt to 
apply them to the existing order of things. Let the framers 
of ecclesiastical Utopias dream over whatever unreal Past or 
impossible Future it pleases imagination to patronize ; but 
this state of things, we presume to say, arises necessarily out 
of the constitution and progressive development of man, and 
therefore out of (rod's appointment. If it has its evils, in God's 
name let us labour to remedy or to allay those evils in the best 



Essay VIL] EELATION OF THE CLEEGY TO THE PEOPLE. 427 

practicable manner. But it has likewise its inestimable bless- 
ings, for which in God's name let us show our gratitude. 

What is meant by the independence of the Church upon the 
State ? We apprehend that there is now no country, or hardly 
any country in Europe, where the clergy even of the Eoman 
Catholic Church, however in theory some may profess their 
admiration for what they hold up as the sublime doctrines of 
Bellarmine and Mariana, would pretend to be a separate, self- 
ruled caste, superior to all the obligations, and free from all 
the restraints of citizens. For all offences against the laws 
they are amenable to the civil tribunals ; they hold, where 
they still hold landed estates or property, on the common legal 
tenure of the country ; they are liable to public burthens ; 
they owe allegiance to the sovereign ; and are bound by all the 
enactments of constitutional authority. This common allegi- 
ance they owe in return for the common protection of the law. 
So far, then, no independence belongs to the clergy beyond 
any other members of the same community. 

The independence of the Church, then, is the right of propa- 
gating and maintaining Christian truth, whether by direct teach- 
ing or by its peculiar rites and ceremonies. This is indeed to 
a certain extent a right, and more than a right— a solemn 
duty— in every one whom God has gifted with powers for such 
a work ;— but it is a right peculiarly vested in the clergy, who 
have solemnly dedicated themselves to, and are recognized as 
exercising, in a peculiar manner, this great public function. 
This independence is grounded on the great law of Christian 
liberty, which is superior in its claims on the conscience to all 
other law— the law by which all are bound to obey God rather 
than man. On the other hand, there is and must be an 
abstract omnipotence in the laws of the land— a supremacy, ac- 
cording to the constitution of each state, vested in a monarch, 
a senate, or in a popular assembly; and extreme state-neces- 
sity may justify the suspension of this as of all other inalien- 
able rights. But that state-necessity must be clear, urgent, 
irresistible; the civil polity must be in actual, in imminent 



428 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

danger. Where Church and State from separate become an- 
tagonist powers, there is something wrong or unnatural, some- 
thing out of the usual course — on one side or the other usurpa- 
tion or injustice. When a man's civil and religious duties are 
brought into collision, either the State is unnecessarily inter- 
fering with Christian liberty, or the Church has advanced some 
pretensions beyond her proper province. 

This state of things at once appears in the early history of 
Christianity. The abstract supremacy of the law the Eomans 
— those idolaters of law — had vested by the change of their 
constitution in the emperor. In him, however tyrannical he 
might be, was the full, unlimited sovereignty over all mankind. 
This sovereignty was first put forth against the Christians, 
afterwards in their behalf, or in behalf of one class of Chris- 
tians against another. The emperor now of his sole will forbade 
men to be Christians ; now commanded them to be Christians ; 
this year to be Arians, next year to be Trinitarians. If there 
had been an absolute state-necessity,— if either Christians or 
Heathens, Arians or Trinitarians, had been undoubtedly and 
irreclaimably enemies of public order and peace— if, as they 
were at first wrongfully accused, they had infringed the first 
principles of social morality, had been cannibals, and from 
their religion itself devoted to horrible crimes— then the justice 
of their persecution would have been unimpeachable : but as 
there was nothing in either religion, either in Christianity 
before the days of Constantine, or in heathenism after the days 
of Theodosius, to prevent men from being good subjects and 

orderly citizens, all interference was unjustifiable tyranny 

tyranny which they were bound to oppose, at least by passive 
resistance. 

So far on these abstract principles of independence ; and, 
undoubtedly, where this collision between the sovereignty of 
the State, and the proper liberty of conscience, or the liberty 
to the clergy of exercising its high functions, was inseparable 
from the order of things— or even likely to be frequent— an 
unmarried clergy, being freed from social ties, might have 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 429 



greater courage to resist, and to resist to the death, this in- 
tolerable state-despotism. But, for the same reason, if more 
hardy asserters of the independence of the Church, they would 
be more dangerous enemies to the proper supremacy of the 
State. If the tender charities of life would weaken the heart 
of the Christian, so their absence would harden and make more 
inflexible that of the ambitious and usurping churchman. 5 
Mohler, with his usual sagacity, has endeavoured to anticipate 
this, and adduced as examples of the independence of a celi- 
bate clergy, even in front of ecclesiastical usurpation, the friar 
Minorites, and the asserters of the liberties of the Gallican 
Church against the exorbitant pretensions of the Papacy. The 
fact of such resistence is true : but what follows ? That these 
pretensions were so at war with the common sense and reason 
of mankind, that they provoked rebellion even among the 
subjects of the Papacy ; they were resisted by some of the 
clergy who lived under the general law of celibacy ; but celi- 
bacy had no connection whatever with their resistance. The 
married Protestant clergy of France might be strengthened in 
their Protestantism by their attachment to their wives and 
families ; but neither did the democratical opposition of that 
branch of the Franciscans, nor the aristocratic opposition of 
the higher French clergy, rise out of, nor was it strengthened 
or supported by, their celibacy : in the former it was much 
more connected with their vows and habits of poverty ; in the 
latter with their adulatory exaltation of the French Crown. 
It is singular enough, that while Mohler is holding up this 
independence of the older Dupin, and Bossuet, and Fleury, as a 
noble testimony to the effects of celibacy, the celibate clergy of 
France, with Cardinal Bonald at their head, are condemning 

5 Furono biasimati li Legati d' haver lasciato disputar questo articolo, come peri- 
coloso: essendo cosachiara ehe coll' introduzione del matrimonio de' Preti, sifarebbe 
che tutti voltassero 1' affetto et amor loro alle mogli, a figli, e per consequent alia 
casa, ed alia patria ; onde cessarebbe la dependenza stretta che 1' ordine clericale ha 
con la Sede Apostolica, e tanto sarebbe conceder il matrimonio a Preti, qnanto 
distrugger la Hierarchia Ecclesiastica, e ridur il Pontifice che non fosse piu che 
Vescovo di Roma.— Fra Paolo, Stor. del Con. di Trento, lib. vii 



430 KELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 



most solemnly the work of M. Dupin, a layman, who asserts 
the Grallican liberties. 

But how far is this natural and unalienable independence of 
the Church limited or compromised by its becoming an Es- 
tablished Church, recognized by the Constitution, directly 
endowed or paid by the State as the Church of France, or 
holding property under the protection of the common laws, 
and having the guarantee of law for whatever gifts or bequests 
it may receive from the piety of its disciples ? It is the plain 
duty of every Christian to provide, in his proportion, for public 
worship, and the maintenance of the necessary ministers of 
religion. 6 But in whatever form, and to whatsoever amount, 
this provision may be — if it is taken, as it were, from the pre- 
carious safeguard of the individual conscience — if the payment 
ceases to be voluntary — if it be secured by statute as a legal 
claim, or as a corporate inheritance, assessed and levied by 
legal authority— it cannot at once be under and above law. 
How far then has the State, if the religion of the Church be 
that of the whole people, or even of a dominant majority, a 
right to interfere ; either as the general guardian of property 
— which is to a certain extent the creation of the State, and 
which it must not permit to be diverted from its legitimate 
purposes ; or as itself constituting the Church (minus the 
clergy), and eo nomine bound to maintain this property in 
perpetuity for its sacred uses? When the Church thought 
itself strong enough to maintain Church property by Church 
censures alone — when the danger lay in the treachery of their 
own body, who might be tempted to sacrifice the interests of 
the Church to the interests of their family — then there cer- 
tainly was a strong argument for the celibacy of the clergy. 

6 We find that we have now a new champion of the divine right of tithes. 1 The 
tenth part of every man'd fixed income has been by God's ordinance devoted to Him 
ever since the creation ; Christian kings gave it from the revenues of all their lands, 
and such was regularly paid so long as income was derived from the produce of the 
land alone. Merchants and manufacturers, however, never paid it out of their 
revenue ; they always cheated God, and do so to this day.' — Mr. Henry Drummond's 
Letter to Sir E. Inglis. 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 431 

A married clergy — in the endeavour to make that hereditary 
in their own families, which was rightfully hereditary accord- 
ing to Church descent — would probably not only have di- 
minished the enormous wealth of the sacerdotal order — even 
though counteracted by the monastic spirit, which was con- 
stantly bringing large revenues into the Church — but they 
might have reduced it far too low for the times. Not that 
this danger has been absolutely prevented by the Hilde- 
brandine Law. Episcopal, and still more Papal, nepotism has 
preyed in quiet on the wealth of the Church, with almost as 
much rapacity as could have been feared from parental affec- 
tion. The great and wealthy houses of Eome, which bear the 
family name of almost each successive Pope (though many of 
these Popes were of mean origin), could hardly have been 
founded except either by direct alienation of the estates of the 
see, or at least the diversion of its actual revenues for the time 
from their designed and avowed uses. But to return — that in 
most countries in Europe the State has been tempted by the 
vast wealth of the Church, or of ecclesiastical bodies, to abuse 
its power for plunder and confiscation, is no argument against 
the proper control of the State. The laws of England, which 
prevent the alienation of Church or Chapter property to pri- 
vate uses, will hardly deserve the unpopular name of Eras- 
tianism. This is at least a more simple and more safe measure 
than trusting altogether to the superior integrity, or the devo- 
tion of an unmarried clergy to the interest of their order, or 
the good of the Church, over that of a married clergy. 

What part of the independence of the clergy, which is salu- 
tary either for themselves or for mankind — what part of their 
legitimate, their beneficial influence— is more conscientiously 
guarded, more strenuously exercised by an unmarried than by a 
married ministry ? A married clergy will always (from being an 
order, especially if an endowed order) have as much of the cor- 
porate spirit as is good for them and for the laity. It never has 
been wanting (its excess has rather been complained of) in the 
English Church. The double allegiance to the Pope and to the 



432 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

temporal sovereign, we hold, in the present day, to be almost a 
harmless fiction of ecclesiastical law. In this sense we would 
speak with our friend Mr. Carlyle, if we may without offence, of 
that 6 chimsera the Pope.' The ultramontane doctrines of the 
French clergy are the growth of France, not of Eome ; their 
Jesuitism is, we are satisfied, at bottom more political than reli- 
gious ; it is anti-revolutionary, and anti-revolutionary even to 
abject absolutism, though at present in opposition to the govern- 
ment, rather than merely papal. It is inclined to repudiate the 
Grallican liberties because those liberties are asserted by the 
ruling party in the State. In other parts of Europe the move- 
ment is more decidedly religious ; but we greatly doubt, though 
its more powerful and zealous partisans may themselves sternly 
embrace and rigidly enforce clerical celibacy, whether eventually 
this question may not become the groundwork of a more for- 
midable schism than has yet divided the Western Church. 
Appealing, indeed, to later history, we cannot see that the 
clergy of England, or of Protestant countries in general, have 
been more subservient to the State (to the Crown as head of 
the State) than the unmarried courtly prelates of France or 
Spain. The latter may have obtained greater power, because 
the priestly character was more awful, and they still maintained 
something of that intellectual superiority which had belonged 
to them in the middle ages ; but we doubt whether the claims 
of ten hungry children, or the ambition of a luxurious wife, 
would have sharpened their contention or subtilized their 
intrigues for court favour and preferment. The ' sufferings ' of 
the married clergy in England in the days of Cromwell were 
no doubt greater than they would have been, had they been 
unmarried ; but they were not borne with less meekness and 
resignation. We do not remember how many of the seven 
bishops were married, but they all went to the Tower with the 
same submissive d%nity. The direct power of the Crown as 
to the Church, in the appointment of bishops for instance, may 
be greater in England than in most Roman Catholic countries; 
but the actual power has always been as great wherever the 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 433 



Crown was strong : — witness Austria, witness even France. 
Had our bishops been unmarried, they would not the less have 
been appointed, in former days, through parliamentary influence 
or ministerial caprice. No part of our present ecclesiastical 
system, which is denounced as Erastian, is affected by this 
question of discipline — neither the royal or parliamentary 
supremacy originally recognized, and ratified in the Act of 
Uniformity — nor the more recent parliamentary measures 
relating to Church property — nor those for the relief of the 
Queen's subjects who are without the pale of the National 
Church. 

Looking, indeed, entirely towards home, we will neither 
disguise nor deny some incidental advantages which might 
arise at least from voluntary clerical celibacy. We as little 
incline to compulsory marriage, compulsory even by the mild 
influence of persuasion, as to compulsory celibacy : we are not 
such zealous anti-Malthusians as to wish to weaken the check 
of forethought. The clergy are not merely as much bound as 
any other men — they should be more strongly bound by the 
ordinary rules of prudence than the poorest of the poor, with 
whom indeed themselves, considering their station, are too 
often to be numbered : if they marry without provision for the 
future, they must make up their minds to pay for the luxury of 
domestic happiness by personal privation, and not by impairing 
their small means of usefulness. For this reason we look with 
great apprehension to the temptations held out through the 
multiplication of very small benefices by the recent ecclesiasti- 
cal arrangements. If young men, impressed with the wretched 
state of the lower population in our large towns, shall deny 
themselves that luxury in order more entirely to devote them- 
selves and their worldly means, to their mission, and shall find 
that they have strength to adhere to their purpose, who will 
refuse to admire the beauty and the grandeur of such Christian 
love ? But this, as its sole merit consists in the conscientious 
conviction and self-denial of individuals — so it must stand 
without, and high above, any general rule. All its dignity 

F F 



434 RELATION OF THE CLEBGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

arises out of its spontaneousness ; the self-dedication is its one 
claim to Christian reverence. 

Some transitory folly and vanity may under our present 
ordinary system beset the path of the clergyman in the opening 
of his career, which he might escape if he were known to be 
one to whom the softer sympathies of our nature are interdicted 
by a stern and irrepealable law. The sensation produced in a 
village, or even a town, by the appearance of a young, perhaps 
handsome, undoubtedly eloquent curate, may not be quite 
purely spiritual : the young ladies are seized with more than 
usual warmth of devotion — they are even more than ordinarily 
attentive in the church — they become remarkably active in 
their visits among the poor — and greatly interested in charitable 
societies. But this does not last long — except in a very few 
cases : the comely curate makes his choice, and settles down 
into the quiet and exemplary husband and father. Still we 
must not behold our young and moderately-beneficed clergyman 
in the first blameless enjoyment of domestic happiness only ; — 
we must look forward to the pressure of domestic cares and 
anxieties. The provision for the growing family more and 
more occupies the thoughts, and withdraws them from the 
higher calling. The scanty income must be more exclusively 
devoted to these imperious claims, or eked out by pupils, or 
some other occupation. This is an evil, undoubtedly, to be set 
against the enormous amount of good, arising out of the 
removal of an unnatural restriction — a restriction which, when 
enforced, has been enforced only by a severe struggle — where 
attempted to be enforced in a less rigid period of morals, then 
most fearfully demoralising ; and likewise against the other 
blessings which a married clergy confer on a Christian com- 
munity. 

On a broad and general view even of this maintenance part 
of the question, as it works practically among ourselves, there 
are many incidental advantages which the merest utilitarian 
must allow to counterbalance the afflicting penury, or at least 
straitened- circumstances, of many among our parochial clergy. 



Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 435 



Such inquirers must consider not only how much Church wealth 
(we mean wealth arising out of the offerings or endowments 
received by a clergy) is thus to a certain extent withdrawn 
from church uses strictly so called ; but also how much temporal 
wealth is brought into the Church by the present system, and 
devoted to what may fairly be called church uses ; the better 
maintenance of the clergy, the charities, and even in some cases 
the adornment of the sacred edifices. In a word, how many of 
the English clergy spend far more of their own — first on their 
professional education, afterwards in the sphere of their pro- 
fessional duty — than they ever receive from it ! This arises, 
no doubt, from the respect in which the profession is held. But 
how many such valuable men would be repelled if they had to 
make the further sacrifice of domestic life ! 

In fine, you may make a sect, you may make a brotherhood, 
by imposing any test, however above nature or contrary to 
nature : — and your sect or your brotherhood will rise and fall, 
as did all the monastic orders, with sudden accesses and gradual 
paralyses of zeal — but that was immaterial ; whether the suc- 
cession was kept up, or how the succession was kept up, regarded 
the order alone. But you cannot so make or maintain an 
order of clergy — an order which must be supplied in cold as 
well as excited, in rationalising as well as in enthusiastic times. 
You cannot calculate on a sustained and perpetual effort to 
subdue and extirpate nature. To recruit a clergy who are to in- 
fluence every class, cope with every adversary, meet the wants of 
a vast population in various degrees of intelligence and advance- 
ment, you must not look merely to the rare and heroic virtues 
of which our nature affords specimens. You must disqualify 
none who might be useful, by unnecessary restrictions ; you 
must condescend to, rather than haughtily proscribe, human 
weakness. A clergy all burning zeal, all vehement enthusiasm, 
all restless activity, would be a questionable blessing to any 
country: extreme fanaticism, extravagant superstition, alone 
would raise the more ambitious and enterprising above the 
high level. But among a sober and practical people like 

F I 2 



436 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 



ourselves there must always be a strong counterpoise of modera- 
tion, good sense, and practical widsom. Imperfect Christians 
as we are, we do not stand in need of fiery missionaries every 
two or three years to reclaim us from our heathenism, and to 
teach us anew the primary elements of our faith. The constant 
infusion of youth into our clerical body is of itself (independent 
of sectarian rivalry) enough to keep us alive— of youth which 
in its generous ardour will be always looking out for some new 
principles which are to regenerate mankind : who have been 
Evangelicals — are now Puseyites — in ten years may be 
Arnoldines. 

The clergy in general must partake of the character of the 
people. Without assuming Lord Clarendon's well-known re- 
proach on the professional narrowness of mind and unfitness for 
the affairs of life to be quite obsolete — admitting the contract- 
ing influences of seclusion in country cures (if railroads will 
allow the deepest dells or the wildest mountain hamlet to be 
secluded) — the conscientious confinement of their minds to one 
class of literature — the occupation of their whole thoughts by 
the severe duties of their calling — the temptation of breaking 
up into small sets and clerical cliques — still it is impossible 
that our clergy should not partake of the general intelligence, 
or that they should keep themselves entirely aloof from the 
general movement of the human mind. 

The great trial of the English clergy — the test of their fit- 
ness for the English people — is a distinct perception of their 
actual position as regards the rest of society. This perception 
must be realised, notwithstanding every attempt to bewilder 
them into a false idea of that superiority which they may and 
ought to possess by skilful appeals to their pride, by artfully 
disguised suggestions of self-sufficiency, and by perpetual per- 
suasives that, in the most exaggerated notions of their authority, 
they are magnifying Grod, and not themselves. The real 
danger of the recent movement in the Church is the total 
isolation of the clergy from the sympathies, from the hearts, 
and from the understandings of the people. The energizers 



Essay VII.] KELATION OF THE CLEKGY TO THE PEOPLE. 437 

of the hour are a mere unintelligible enigma to the popular 
mind. 

We know very well all the sounding common-places that will 
be evoked by what we are about to say — but we cannot afford 
space to forestall them : it is our simple duty to look steadily 
into the state of the world around us, and declare the results of 
our investigation. The party to whom we allude have been 
straining themselves in a vain effort to resuscitate a dead 
system of things. The clergy can no longer command — but 
they may persuade with irresistible force ; their persuasion, 
however, must be purely moral and religious, as contradis- 
tinguished from sacerdotal persuasion. Many causes, none 
indeed which ought to make us despair of their proper and 
legitimate influence, have altered their position. They no 
longer stand alone on an intellectual as well as a religious 
eminence. The awe in which they were invested as wiser as 
well as holier than the rest of mankind, has passed away ; they 
are not the exclusive, or even in any peculiar degree the pre- 
eminent cultivators of letters, of arts, or of philosophy. The 
mass of the clergy are no doubt, and must henceforward be, in- 
ferior in general knowledge to many of the laity in their respec- 
tive parishes ; and if, on the strength of their position, on the 
sanctity of their ordination, they pretend to assume a superiority 
which they cannot support ; if, where they are not intellectually 
superior, they do not confine themselves entirely to their re- 
ligious guidance — nay, if, being conscious of high talents, they 
do not exercise even that guidance with the modesty which 
ought always to belong to youth— which (to say truth) is very 
rarely wanting when the mind is really strong — but which is, in 
fact, the surest pledge of the real Christian temper and spirit 
—they will lose their proper power, by straining after that 
which is unattainable — which neither is nor can again be their 
prerogative. 

The knell of ecclesiastical authority has rung : even in the 
Roman Catholic Church, notwithstanding its large apparent 
increase in many quarters— and great is still its influence upon 



438 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

the minds of men — its power is a phantom. It is now a great 
confederacy working together for a common end ; not a body 
wielded at will, and governed and directed in all its movements 
by a despotic Head, 

The Pope holds Eome through the great powers of Europe : 
if they were to withdraw their support, his own subjects would 
reduce him, as they often attempted of old but always failed, 
to a simple bishop ; if indeed young Italy would still endure 
his presence. The kings, who were of old his vassals, are his 
masters. In Austria the Church is the servant of the state : it 
has never shaken off the yoke imposed upon it by Joseph II. 
What may be called the spiritual mandates of the Pope are 
obeyed, even in Italy, according to the good will of the sovereign 
princes. He attempted to interdict the scientific meetings in 
Italy ; they have been held in Tuscany, in the Austrian States, 
and even in Turin— this year they assemble in Naples. Even 
the puny despot of Modena has invited them. In Spain the 
work of spoliation, the secularization at least of conventual 
property, has hardly condescended to notice the remonstrances 
of the Eoman Pontiff. In Germany Eoman Catholicism is 
still strong : it is strong in the old poetical and sesthetic feel- 
ings of the people in some parts, among the men of letters, the 
artists ; it is strong as the badge and distinction of one of the 
great political divisions, of the Austrian as counterbalancing 
the Prussian power ; it is strong in the contentions of its ad- 
versaries, in the three main sections— the religious Protestants, 
the Eationalists, and the Hegelians. But is the Eoman Catho- 
licism of Germany a submissive, obedient faith ? One Hermes 
has been hardly suppressed, partly perhaps because his system 
was too abstruse and metaphysical even for Germany itself. 
But how long will it be before there is another and more popu- 
lar Hermes ? < They ' (says the writer of a strange book, but 
with many things in it not less true because they are strange ; 
at all events, a very able man, and one who knows much of the 
real state of Germany),— < they who now hear the Hegelite 
lectures and read the O'Connell addresses of Eomish literati, 



Essay VIL] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 439 

would hardly believe that they emanated from the children of 
that Church which condemned Galileo, and denounced all 
rebellion against the Lord's anointed. But besides the politic 
relaxations of discipline on the part of the Komish Church 
towards those without, her own clergy plainly indicate a ten- 
dency to reject, as unscriptural or intolerable, many of her 
observances. They chiefly insist on the use of the vernacular 
tongue, the abolition of celibacy, communion in both kinds, the 
reform of the confessional, and the abridgment of the Papal 
authority. Although some are actuated by an infidel im- 
patience, others are truly seeking the well-being of the Church ; 
and although Mohler— whose fair pictures of his mother make 
one wish that they were true, and that he did not know their 
falseness-quieted matters for a time by his moral influence 
and apologetic adroitness, yet the principles at work will not 
long leave these objects unattained.' 7 Since this gentleman 
wrote the affair has assumed a very formidable shape. The 
movement of the Rouge party has already swept like a torrent 
from west to east, from north to south. A new Eeformation is 
organized. 

Among ourselves we will not dwell on the total abrogation of 
all real authority in those who hold the place of rulers in our 
Church. What is the case in the quarter where obedience is the 
very vital principle of the system? In the words of that re- 
markable letter to Sir E. Inglis, which we have already more 
than once cited, ' The Tractariaus, obedient in theory, and loyal, 
not to their own diocesans, but to their own ideas of what their 
diocesans should say and do, go a-head of, reprove, and teach 
the Bishops of the Church, without any commission, without 
the thought or pretence of apostolic authority so to do.' Here 

. Moral Phenomena of Germany, by Thomas Carlyle, Esq. ■ Behold there , are 
two Pereies in the field! '-of Germany. This gentleman holds very d^nt Prm- 
c^es (principles akin to those of Mr. Henry Drummond) from the <>r ^!"^^™^ 
Carlyle neither does he write in Carlylese. We wish we conld have g.ren more of 
t^'fi^^ 

connt on a futnre (we hope a speedy) opportumty of mak.ng our readers better ac 
quainted with him. 



440 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay Tit 

and there we have some desperate ostentatious act of sub- 
mission, endured with the air of a martyr. What can a bishop 
do by power even over his clergy ? What may he not do by 
gentle influence ? 

All this may be very melancholy, and to those who have less 
faith in the vital powers of Christianity, in whatever form it 
may adapt itself to the infinite varieties of the human mind, 
and to every stage of civilization, it may lead to utter despair. 
But let us rather look back to the causes of this decay of 
authority with quiet impartiality. Nothing is more easy than to 
denounce the infidelity of the age— to deplore the irrevocable 
past— with the almost enviable unfairness, though not always 
with the beautiful feeling and eloquence of the author of the 
'Mores Catholici,' to recall all that was poetical, tranquil, holy, 
in what that writer is pleased to call the Ages of Faith, and to 
be totally silent on the unutterable miseries, and crimes, and 
cruelties of those fierce times. But trace the growth of ecclesi- 
astical power, and we trace its decay. The one legitimate ex- 
treme penalty which belongs to the Church, however that 
Church may be ruled, is excommunication. Penance in its 
various forms can, of course, only be enforced on a reluctant 
member by the dread of that last and capital punishment. No 
sooner had the Eoman emperors been converted to Christianity 
than excommunication became connected with civil disabilities. 
It was not merely a religious, but likewise a secular punishment. 
In the high days of ecclesiastical power it even smote, as it 
were, the State itself with civil disability. The excommu- 
nicated king, according to the loftiest theory, was thereby 
deposed. Even where the sentence of deposition was either 
not issued, or was despised by the refractory son of the Church, 
public opinion inflicted a kind of civil disability. The excom- 
municated monarch was, even to his subjects, as it were, a 
leper, and all allegiance which he might still receive or enforce 
was at best doubtful and precarious. But by the constitution 
of most kingdoms, by the great common law of Europe, ex- 
communication has entirely lost this alliance with civil dis- 



Essay VII.] RELATION OE THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 441 



ability. Some privileges may still be withheld, some offices be 
refused to dissentients from the dominant faith, from those 
who are self-excommunicated (for all separation is self-excom- 
munication) from the Church, whether it call itself Catholic, or 
be a national or otherwise self-incorporated society — but that 
is all. 

Beyond this ; that kind of civil incapacity which was inflicted 
by public opinion, that open or that tacit proscription which 
dooms those without the pale of the Church to inferiority, has 
likewise, for the most part, practically disappeared. The sym- 
pathies of men are so entirely in favour of toleration, that the 
Eoman Catholic Church, as well as every the smallest sect (of 
which the theory equally is, and must be, exclusive salvation 
within its own or some limited pale) is perpetually at issue with 
its own principle. Its authority is gone when men can despise 
that authority and be none the worse, either as to their worldly 
situation or their estimation in society, and ivhere they them- 
selves dread no eternal consequences. Where excommunica- 
tion does not certainly imply (if unrepealed) absolute exclusion 
from heaven, where it has lost its spiritual as well as its 
temporal terrors, then and there its power has either altogether 
ceased, or is so reduced as almost to be deprived of its control- 
ling efficacy. When any one may in a Eoman Catholic country 
become a Protestant (excepting where feuds, as in Ireland, run 
high), however he may distress his friends or family, with- 
out losing caste ; where a man, excluded from one religious 
community (at least on purely religious grounds), is at once 
received into another — what is excommunication? It is 
already incurred by the voluntary renunciation of relationship. 
I banish you, says, with Coriolanus, every proud, or at least self- 
confident, seceder. But if deprived of this ultima ratio, how 
shall ecclesiastical authority enforce its smaller penalties for 
smaller offences ? The conscience of the individual has become 
his sole judge ; whether he fears or whether he defies Church 
censure, absolutely depends on his own individual conviction of 
the validity or invalidity of Church censure. If, indeed, we 



442 BELATION OF THE CLEEGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

bemoan the loss of godly discipline, if we think those wiser or 
more safe who still bow themselves to its humiliating and it 
may be sanctifying control, we should first remember that it 
was because it ceased to be godly discipline, and stooped to be 
worldly discipline, that it has been so entirely lost. And was 
penitential discipline so efficacious ? All that we know of the 
state of morals and of manners, when it was at its height, is 
not much in its favour. According to our own modes of feel- 
ing are we quite sure that doing penance and being put to open 
shame would be productive of inward contrition ? and notwith- 
standing the contempt and pity which is felt and expressed 
towards our degenerate age, we believe that our aversion to 
ostentatious penitence, to that self-atoning confrontation of 
shame, is a sign of our moral advancement, of our genuine 
rather than affected religious sensibility. 

What mission, then, remains to the clergy in a state of society 
which thus repudiates their authority ? The noblest, the most 
sublime, because the most quietly, secretly, unostentatiously, 
beneficent ; in many, perhaps in most, places ill-rewarded, 
often entirely disinterested service ; and that without awaken- 
ing the old justifiable jealousies, and therefore without en- 
countering the hostility, which perpetually struggled against a 
presumptuous, arrogant, dictatorial, meddling, sacerdotal power. 
To be the administrators of the holy, the sanctifying sacraments 
of our faith ; to be the ministers of a Church ceremonial, simple 
but solemn, affecting, impressive— a ceremonial not to be regu- 
lated by pedantic adherence to antiquated forms, but instinct 
with spiritual life ; not the revival of a symbolism, which has 
ceased to be a language, and become a hieroglyphic — a hiero- 
glyphic without a Champollion ; neither a sort of manual exercise 
of Church postures, which have lost their meaning — an orderly 
parade of genuflexion, and hand-clasping, and bowing the head, 
— but a ceremonial set forth, if possible, with all that is grand 
and beautiful in art (for nothing is grand or beautiful which 
has not an infelt harmony with its purpose) — the most solemn 
and effective music, the purest and most impressive architecture 



Essay VIL] EELATION OF THE CLEKGY TO THE PEOPLE. 443 

everything which may separate the worship of (rod from the 

ordinary and vulgar daily life of man— all that really enforces 
reverence— excludes the world; calms, elevates, truly spiritual- 
izes the soul— all which asserts, heightens, purifies devotion— 
that devotion daily fed and maintained, where it may be prac- 
ticable, with daily service. The mission of the clergy is to be 
more than the preachers of the Gospel, the example of the (xospel 
in all its assiduous and active love. In each parish throughout 
the kingdom to head the model family of order, of peace, of 
piety, of cheerfulness, of contentedness, of resignation in afflic- 
tion, of hopefulness under all circumstances. To be the almoner 
(the supplementary almoner over and above the necessarily 
hard measure of legal alms) of those who cannot be their own. 
To be the ruler, as such a clergy will be, by the homely poetic 
precept of domestic life : 

And if she rule him, never shows she rules. 

The religion of such a clergy will not be the religion of the 
thirteenth century, nor of the ninth century, nor of the fourth 
century, but it will be the, in many respects, better religion of 
the nineteenth. Let us boldly say, that the rude and gross 
and material piety of former ages was an easy task as compared 
to rational, intelligent piety in the present. Mere force is not 
strength, but force under command. The cilice and the scourge 
are but coarse and vulgar expedients to subdue the will to the 
yoke of Christian faith and love. What is the most flagellant 
asceticism, the maceration of the body, to the self-denial of a 
great mind, above all the transitory excitement, the bustle and 
fashion of the religionism of his day, but sternly and hopefully 
striving for the truth, holding with steady equipoise the balance 
of reason and faith ? 

Of all things, such a clergy will be utterly abhorrent to all 
tampering with truth ; they will place themselves high above 
even the suspicion of profiting by untruth-not, we grieve to 
say, under existing circumstances, the least difficult of our 
trials. For among a truth-loving people like ourselves — at 



444 EELATION OP THE CLEKGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. 

least comparatively truth-loving — the sure effect of the slightest 
dishonesty of purpose or language will be the total estrange- 
ment of the confidence and the respect of the people. 

Thus, then, it is (writes one of the biographers of the Saints) : some 
there are which have no memorial, and are as though they have never 
been ; others are known to have lived and died, and are known in little 
else : they have left a name, but they have left nothing besides ; or the 
place of their birth, or of their abode, or of their death, or some one or 
other striking incident of their life gives a character to their memory ; 
or they are known by martyrologies, or services, or by the traditions of 
a neighbourhood, or by the titles or decorations of a church : or they 
are known by certain miraculous interpositions which are attributed to 
them ; or their deeds and sufferings belong to countries far away, and 
the report of them comes musical and low over the broad sea. Such 
are some of the small elements which, when more is not known, faith is 
fain to receive, love dwells on, meditation unfolds, disposes, and forms, 
till by the sympathy of many minds, and the concert of many voices, and 
the lapse of many years, a certain whole figure is developed with words 
and actions, a history and a character, which is indeed but the portrait 
of the original, yet is as much as a portrait, an imitation rather than a 
copy, a likeness on the whole ; but in its particulars more or less the 
work of imagination. It is but collateral and parallel to the truth ; it is 
the truth under assumed conditions ; it brings out a true idea, yet by in- 
accurate or defective means of exhibition ; it savours of the age, yet it is 
the offspring from what is spiritual and everlasting. It is the picture of 
a Saint, who did other miracles, if not these ; who went through suffer- 
ings, who wrought righteousness, who died in faith and peace— of this 
we are sure ; we are not sure, should it so happen, of the when, the 
where, the how, the why, and the whence.— Life of St. Qundleus, 
pp. 4, 5. 

There is a work of which our readers perhaps have heard 
much, but know little ; the < Life of Jesus,' by Strauss. We 
have sometimes contemplated an attempt to give our readers 
some notion of this book, but have been deterred partly by 
general doubts as to the expediency of such a course ; partly 
by the difficulty of fairly translating the peculiar mode of 
thought and expression, which is not merely German, but 
German according to a special philosophy— that of Hegel. It 
is done to our hands by this unconscious Hegelite ; alter a few 
words, and we are reading Strauss, unfolding the process by 



Essay VII.] KELATION OF THE CLEEGY TO THE PEOPLE. 445 

which grew up the great Myth of Christianity : and if this be 
the legitimate principle of Christian history, what criterion of 
superior credibility have the four Gospels over the fifth by S. 
Bonaventure and Mr. Oakley, recently published for the edifi- 
cation of the English Church ? 

We have quoted but one sample ; we could easily give fifty 
in the same strain. It is a serious question to deal with a 
peasantry in whom legendary faith has been, as it were, a part 
of their baptismal creed, who have been nursed, and cradled, 
and matured in this atmosphere of religious fiction, lest, when 
we pluck up the tares, we pluck up the wheat also. But deli- 
berately to load Christianity again with all the lies of which it 
has gradually disburthened itself, appears to us the worst kind 
of infidelity both in its origin and in its consequences ; infidelity 
as implying total mistrust in the plain Christianity of the 
Bible ; infidelity as shaking the belief in all religious truth. 
It may be well to have the tenderest compassion for those who 
have been taught to worship relics, or to kneel in supplication 
before the image of the Virgin ; but to attempt to force back, 
especially on an unimaginative people, an antiquated supersti- 
tion, is assuredly one of the most debasing offices to which high 
talents, that greatest and most perilous gift of Grod, can degrade 
themselves. If mankind has no alternative between the full, 
unquestioning, all-embracing, all-worshipping faith of the 
middle ages, and no faith at all, what must be the result with 
the reasoning and reflecting part of it ? To this question we 
await an answer ; but let this question be answered by those 
only who have considered it calmly, under no preconceived 
system, in all its bearings on the temporal and on the eternal 
interests of mankind. 



446 



VIII. 

PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES.' 

(July, 1865.) 

It has been often said that the English traveller usually enters 
Rome the wrong way. It has never been better said than in 
an old book, by one who, as many men living may recollect, 
was held in the highest esteem and affection in the University 
of Oxford, Professor Edward Burton, whose early death cut him 
off prematurely from those highest ecclesiastical honours, which 
might have been commanded by his profound but modest 
learning, his singularly calm, yet, at the same time, singularly 
liberal, mind. We quote the passage in respect for his memory, 
and as expressing our own sentiments with peculiar force and 
distinctness. 

Most people picture to themselves a certain spot, from whence the 
towers and domes of the Eternal City burst upon their view. St. Peter's, 
with its cupola, the immense ruins of the Colosseum, the Pillar of 
Trajan, and such well-known objects, are all crowded into the ideal 
scene ; and the imagination is raised to the utmost pitch in expectation 
of every moment unfolding this glorious prospect. The traveller, 
after feasting upon this hope, and using it to console himself for the 
barrenness of the Campagna and the uninteresting uniformity of the 
view, approaches nearer and nearer without reaching the expected spot. 
His tour-book tells him that near the post of Baccano, fourteen miles 
from Eome, the dome of St. Peter's is first visible. This will be the 
commencement of his delight. But he still disregards the speck in 

1 Via Appia datta Porta Capena a Boville. Descritta dal Commendatore L. 
Canina, 2 vols. Koma. 1853. La Boma Sotterranea Christiana. Descritta ed. 
illustrata dal Cav. Gk B. de Eossi. Boma. 1864. Immagine Scelte della B. Vergine 
Maria, tratte dalle Catacombe Bomane. Boma. 1863. 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 



447 



the horizon, anxiously looking for the happier moment when the whole 
city is discovered. This moment unfortunately never arrives. Where 
that place is to be found in the approach from Florence, which affords 
such a feast to the eye and to the imagination, I never could discover. 
The view of Eome from the Monte Mario, a hill near this road, is 
perhaps one of the noblest and the most affecting which the world 
could produce ; and it may be suspected that some writers, full of the 
gratification which this prospect afforded, have transferred it in de- 
scription to their first entrance. But the road itself discloses the city 
by degrees. Scarcely any of it is seen till within a small distance, 
and then, with the exception of St. Peter's, there are few buildings of 
interest. The antiquities lie mostly on the other side, and are not 
seen at all. The suburbs themselves are not picturesque [they are 
mean, commonplace, like the entrance to an English watering-place'], and 
the traveller finds himself actually in Rome before he has given up the 
hopes of enjoying the distant prospect of it. 

Had he entered the city from Naples, his feelings might have been 
very different. This is the direction from which Rome ought to be 
entered, if we wish our classical enthusiasm to be raised by the first 
view. The Campagna is here even more desolate, and to a greater 
extent, than it is on the side of Florence. For several miles the 
ground is strewed with ruins ; some presenting considerable fragments, 
others only discernible by the inequality of the surface. It seems as 
if the cultivators of the soil had not dared to profane the relics of 
their ancestors ; and from the sea on the left to the Apennines on the 
right, the eye meets with nothing but desolation and decay of grandeur. 
The Aqueducts rise above the other fragments, and seem purposely 
placed there to carry us back to the time of the Republic. The long 
lines of these structures stretch out in various directions. The arches 
are sometimes broken down ; but the effect is heightened by these 
interruptions. In short, in travelling the last twelve miles on this 
road, the mind may indulge in every reflection upon Roman greatness, 
and find the surrounding scenery perfectly in unison. From this road, 
too, the whole city is actually surveyed. The domes and cupolas are 
more numerous than from any other quarter ; beside which, some of 
the ancient edifices themselves are added to the picture. After enter- 
ing the walls, we pass the Colosseum, catch a view of the Forum, the 
Capitol, and other antiquities, which were familiar to us from ancient 
authors. 2 

Dr. Burton might have added, if he had not confined himself 
to heathen antiquities, that on his approach the traveller is 

2 A Description of Eome, by the Rev. Edward Burton. London, 1828. 



448 



PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. 



almost confronted by the vast portico of St. John Lateran, the 
most venerable, if not the most imposing, edifice of Christian 
Rome. 

It must sadly be confessed that too many travellers, we fear 
English travellers, do not or cannot at present allow them- 
selves the choice between these two alternatives. How many 
of our fellow-creatures are now shot into Rome from dreary 
Civita Vecchia, along the dreary morass, over which the rail- 
road passes, to be deposited in a dreary station, as utterly 
unconscious as to any of the noble and stirring emotions, which 
used to attend the entrance into the Eternal City, as their 
portmanteau in the van. Verily there is truth in Mr. Ruskin's 
saying, that railroads have reduced man to a parcel, — all that 
he can desire, all that he can demand, is speedy and safe 
delivery. 

But back to other and better thoughts — to worthier remi- 
niscences. If such was the approach to Rome, fallen and in 
ruins, what was it to Rome in her glory and in her majesty ! 
This line of approach — or rather for the last twelve miles 
parallel to this — was the famous Appian Way, the Queen, as it 
is called by Statius, of the Roman roads; and this Appian Way, 
mile after mile, thronged with the sepulchres and the monuments 
of the illustrious dead. Conceive a Westminster Abbey of 
twelve or sixteen miles! on either side crowded with lofty 
tombs or votive edifices to the dead, and a quarter of a mile or 
half a mile deep ; interrupted only here and there by some 
stately temple to the gods, or by some luxurious villa, around 
which perhaps the ashes of its former masters reposed in state ; 
or by the gardens of some o'er-wealthy Seneca — 4 Senecse 
prsedivitis hortis.' Think of Milton's glorious lines : — 

There be the gates ; cast round thine eye, and see 
What conflux issuing forth, or entering in : 
Praetors, proconsuls, to their provinces 
Hasting, or to return, in robes of state ; 
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power ; 
Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings ; 
Or embassies from regions far remote, 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHBISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 



449 



In various habits, on the Appian road, 

Or on th' Emilian ; some from farthest South, 

Syene, and where the shadow both ways falls, 

Meroe, Nilotic isle ; and more to West, 

The realm of Bocchus to the Black-moor sea ; 

From the Asian kings and Parthian, among these, 

From India, and the golden Chersonese, 

And utmost Indian isle, Taprobane, 

Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreath'd. 

We break off our quotation with these tributary visitors- 
some from Brundusium, the port at which the Eastern, at least 
the Asiatic, embassies usually landed. From the other coast 
might be seen (remember Horace's 'minus est gravis Appia 
tardis ') the high-born, wealthy, or famous Eomans, travelling 
in their state from their luxurious Campanian villas, and, with 
those who landed at Naples or Puteoli, offering a perpetual 
gorgeous spectacle along the road. It would be perhaps press- 
ing too hard another passage in Horace, in which he describes 
the splendid noble, 6 well known under the portico of Agrippa, 
and along the Appian road,' yet doomed to the same common 
fate with the old kings of Eome, as if it contained an allu- 
sion to the wayside sepulchres through which the great man 
passed : — 

.... Cum bene notum 
Porticus Agrippas, et via te conspexerit Appi, 
Ire tamen restat Numa quo devenit et Ancus. 

EpisL i. 6, 25. 

This was perhaps too deep a moral for the graceful satirist. 

Not indeed that the Appian was peculiarly, perhaps not pre- 
eminently, distinguished for these solemn and stately memorials 
of the illustrious dead. Juvenal speaks of those 

.... whose ashes lay 
By the Flaminian or the Latin way. 

Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis, atque Latina. 

Now, however, the greater length of this £ Street of Tombs,' 
and the fortunate diversion of the Brundusian and Neapolitan 

G Gr 



450 PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHKES. [Essay VIII. 



road from near the site of the ancient Bovillse, had left the 
course of the old Appian road more entirely, till the present 
day, in its state of wildness and desolation. To Pope Pius IX. 
is due the gratitude of all students of Eoman antiquities, of all 
who visit Rome with the feelings of solemn veneration which 
her ancient glory ought to inspire. We write deliberately 
when we declare our judgement, that there is nothing so im- 
pressive, so sublimely melancholy, so appalling, we had almost 
said, as the slow journey of several miles, now open, along this 
ancient Appian way. Even to small and graceful Pompeii, 
there was something grave and serious in the approach through 
the c Street of Tombs.' But few as are the actual remains of 
this wilderness of sepulchres on the Appian — 

Quandoquidem data sunt ipsis quoque fata sepulcliris — 

shapeless as most of these are, except the huge Cecilia Metella, 
and that half transformed into a mediaeval fortress — compara- 
tively few as are the glorious names decipherable, except on 
the tomb of the Scipios ; and where the names are recognizable 
even fewer belonging to the noblest that bore those names — 
still the imagination seems to people again the whole region 
with the great Romans of the Republic and of the Empire, to 
create to itself a more solemn and a more enthralling sense of 
the grandeur, of the power, of the vastness, and, if it were not 
mockery to say so, the eternity — the eternity, at least of the 
fame, of Rome — than on the slope of the Capitol, or within the 
gigantic walls of the Colosseum. Here, mile after mile, spread 
one, and but one, of the cemeteries of Rome ; and these ceme- 
teries were of course the exclusive privilege and possession of the 
great, the noble, and the wealthy. It is well known, and it is 
a redeeming point in a society based on slavery, that the great 
admitted the urns of their faithful and favoured freedmen into 
the columbaria of the family monument. But the mass of the 
vulgar dead, the poor, the slaves, the refuse of those thousands, 
according to some the more than millions, of human, beings, 
who swarmed in the streets, lurked in the cellars, nestled in 



Essay VIII. J PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHEES. 451 



the garrets of Rome, what became of them ? We know little 
more than that they were cast into the vast pits, the puticoli, 
which probably were dug in different parts of the outskirts 
of the city, but of which the largest, most famous — may 
we not say, rather, most infamous — were on the Esquiline 
hill- 
Hue prius angustis ejecta cadavera cellis 
Conservus vili portanda locabat in area, 
Hoc miseraa plebi stabat commune sepulchrum. 

Hor. Sat. i. 8, 8. 

An accursed and infected region, where the white bones cropped 
out of the loose black soil ! 

Quo modo tristes 
Albis informem spectabant ossibus agrum ; 

where the foul birds of prey, the s Esquilinse alites,' invoked 
by Canidia, were ever hovering, and perhaps the wolves prowl- 
ing— 

Post, insepulta membra different lupi, 

Et Esquilinse alites. — Epod. v. 99. 

where Canidia herself wandered by moonlight to gather bones 
and poisonous herbs for her spells, and to call up the ghosts of 
the dead. It is well known that a large part of this district — 
dedicated of old to the burial of the poor, as the ancient cippus 
declared — was granted by Augustus to his favourite. The 
blooming, salubrious, and much frequented gardens of Mecsenas 
spread, to some extent, over this unholy and unfertile region. 
Augustus is said to have been influenced by sanitary reasons. 
But what became of the rest of the poor, when they were 
mowed down by thousands by the scythe of Libitina, or stole 
out of life, unmourned, unhonoured, unknown ? This is a 
question which we believe that it is extremely difficult to an- 
swer fully and satisfactorily. All we know is, that intramural 
burial was prohibited by the laws of Eome, even by the XII. 
Tables, with a rigour and severity of which even Mr. Chadwick 

6 G 2 



452 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHKES. [Essay VIII. 



might approve. The only exception was in favour of the 
Vestal Virgins (Serv. ad 6 iEneid.' ix.), and the families of 
one or two great men of old, Valerius Poplicola (Plutarch, 
6 Vit.') and Fabricius ; but this privilege was voluntarily aban- 
doned by their descendants, in deference, no doubt, to public 
feeling. 

Yet vast as was the space along the Eoman highways, and 
though many chose more quiet resting-places, like Propertius, 

Di faciant, mea ne terra locet ossa frequenti 
Qua facit assiduo tramite vulgus iter ; 

the poet would repose under the shade of some beautiful and 
familiar tree. Though some had places of sepulture in their 
pleasure-grounds or gardens, like the Bluebeard in Martial, who 
had buried seven wives : 

Septima jam Phileros tibi conditur uxor in agro : 

still, if the bodies had been generally buried entire, there 
might have been difficulty in finding room for the vast 
sepulchres and vaster monuments of the distinguished families, 
generation after generation ; of those who inherited or claimed 
from wealth or honours to belong to the nobles of the Eepublic 
and of the Empire. But the practice of burning the dead 
made a sepulchre of moderate dimensions sufficient to receive 
the remains of whole families, and even of their retainers. Only 
a small urn, which would hold the ashes was necessary ; and 
these urns might be arranged in the columbaria, the arched 
alcoves or niches, side by side, row above row, with the lachry- 
matories, or any other small memorials with which the pious 
affection of the survivors might wish to honour the departed. 
The practice of burning the dead was, it is well known, not 
universal, perhaps had hardly become general, till the later 
days of the Eepublic. Sylla, it is said, was the first of the 
Cornelii whose body was burned. Though the abdicated 
dictator thought that there was such an awe about his living 
person, that he might defy the cowed and timid hatred of his. 
enemies, Sylla would secure his sacred remains from insult and 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHEES. 453 

ignominy. But from that time, though the ceremonial of 
a funeral pyre must have been costly, this seems, by the per- 
petual allusions in the poets and other writers who touch on 
Roman manners, to have been the ordinary form of burial 
with the rich and the great. Nor was it indeed the especial 
prerogative of the wealthy. Ovid speaks of a plebeian funeral 
pyre: 

Et dare plebeio corpus inane rogo. 

The common term of the ashes (cineres) of the dead is enough 
to show its general usage. Indeed in the poetry of the 
Augustan and later period, allusions to the coffin or the inter- 
ment are rare and unfrequent ; those to the funeral torch, to 
the pyre (rogus), to the cremation of the dead, common and 
perpetual ; and urns, not large and massive sarcophagi, crowd 
the monuments of these crowded cemeteries. 

We return to our Appian Way. It is to the credit of the 
present Pope, it has been said, that the opening of this impos- 
ing scene may fairly be ascribed. Whether his Holiness has 
consulted wise counsellors on religious, ecclesiastical, or politi- 
cal matters, we presume not— we are not called upon to judge; 
but we must do him the justice to say, that in his antiquarian 
advisers he has been singularly fortunate. No one who visits 
Rome will speak with anything but respect of the Cavaliere 
Canina, of Rosa, of Visconti, and the Cavaliere de Rossi. The 
Appian Way has been the province of Canina ; the works have 
been conducted throughout by his industry, sagacity, and 
judgement ; and, though he is now lost to Rome and to the 
world, he has left behind him, among other writings of very 
high value, the volumes, of which the title appears at the head 
of our article, the first part of the Appian Way from the 
Capenian Grate to Bovillse. This work is a model of antiquarian 
research ; inquiring, but not too speculative ; profound, but 
not too abstruse ; with imaginary restorations of some of the 
more remarkable monuments, checked and controlled by good 
engravings of the ruins as they actually appear. Under 



454 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHKES. [Essay VIII. 

Canina's guidance we seem to walk again on the majestic 
Appian Way. 

Had we space, we should have been delighted — reversing 
Canina's order — to conduct (shall we say ?) some consul on the 
road from Brundusium, Capua, or Naples, to a triumph ; or 
some praetor, loaded with the plunder and the curses of some 
Eastern province; some tributary king on his humiliating pil- 
grimage to the feet of the Mistress of the World ; or, shall we 
rather say, St. Paul, escorted by his Jewish brethren from his 
lodging at Appii Forum over the Pomptine Marshes, and bear- 
ing the first rays of Christian light to the capital of Heathen- 
dom, through the stately throngs of monuments, by the temples, 
unconscious of their doom, and the luxurious villas, to the 
Capenian Grate ? We must not, however, linger — we fain 
would linger — but rather proceed with unavoidable celerity, 
and with only brief remarks on the objects which arrest our 
attention. 

Canina ends, we begin, at Bovilke. 3 Not that Bovillaa was 
the first stage from Eome ; that stage, of sixteen miles, reached 
as far as Aricia :— 

Egressum magna me excepit Aricia Eoma ; 

and to Aricia extended the monuments : — 

Dalla porta Capena alle adjacenze dell' Aricia, per circa sedici 
miglia di estensione, i monumenti sepolcrali si congiungevano 1' uno 
all' altro senza lasciare alcuno spazio intermedio vuoto, ed anzi spesso 
nelle posizioni migliori, in vicinanza della citta, stavano collocati 
anche in doppia fila per ciascun lato. 

Old Varro, it should be observed, gives the religious motive 
for this usage, the admonitory lesson of the monuments : — 

Sic monimenta quae in sepulchris, et ideo secundum viam, quo 
prsetereunteis admoneant, et se fuisse, et illos esse mortaleis. 

We shall not delay at Bovillse, even to examine her circus ; 
nor even before the vast circular nameless tomb on the left 



s From near Bovillse the modern road branches off to the right. 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHEES. 



455 



between the tenth and eleventh (Eoman) mile ; or that of still 
more imposing dimensions, between the tenth and ninth. If 
indeed the monuments on the whole did read, and were in- 
tended to read, a solemn lesson on our common mortality, these 
two huge mounds are not less eloquent on the nothingness of 
human pomp and fame. These vast tombs must have been 
raised, to the memory, doubtless it was hoped and believed, 
the sempiternal, undying memory, of the great men deposited 
within them, perhaps with the long procession and all the 
striking rites which attended the public, or even the private, 
funerals of the rich and noble. Their size, one measured 120 
feet on each side of the square, the diameter of the circle 
was 100 feet — their splendid ornamentation (whether Canina 
approaches more or less nearly to their original grandeur in 
his fanciful restorations) may seem to imply Lucullean luxury, 
Crassean wealth, Pompeian magnatism, or Cesarean glory ; or 
it may be, after all, no more than the fond vanity of an admir- 
ing or loving family. But not only are these two tombs utterly 
nameless, without vestige of the rank, station, even the age at 
which their inmates lived (though Canina, from certain reasons, 
especially from the materials employed, conjectures that they 
belong to the later days of the Eepublic) ; on one only are three 
or four disjointed letters, before which even antiquarian boldness 
of conjecture is baffled, and holds its peace. 

As we advance towards Eome the tombs must have been not 
less vast and imposing; but the obscurity which hangs over the 
tenants of those tombs is hardly dispersed. Near the ninth 
milestone stood the stately monument of the Emperor Gallienus, 
in which, according to Aurelius Victor, at a late period, were 
deposited the remains of the Caesar Severus, 4 slain at the < Three 

« The very able writer in Murray's Guide, who describes from Canina the 
whole line of the Appian Way with its monuments, has fallen, or rather has been 
misled, into a curious mistake. He has supposed this to refer to Alexander 
Severus, who, by a singular coincidence, was slain by the connivance, if not by 
the order, of his successor the Thracian Maximin. But Alexander Severus had 
been dead and buried thirty years before ; and what should he do in the sepulchre 
of Gallienus? The passage in the Epitome of Aurelius Victor, on which the 
whole rests, is perfectly clear. 



456 



PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. 



Taverns ' by Herculius Maximianus. Of Gallienus, Gibbon has 
said, with his usual sarcasm and his usual truth, that he was 6 a 
master of several curious but useful sciences, a ready orator, an 
elegant poet, a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most 
contemptible prince.' Yet, though in the latter part of his 
life he was seized with a sort of paroxysm of activity and 
courage, it is difficult to imagine who (during the confusion 
after his death, arising from the unappeased strife of 'The 
Thirty Tyrants ') could have raised so splendid a monument as 
this, as well from the ruins as from the restoration of Canina, 
appears to have been, to so worthless a prince. 

We must hasten on to the undoubted monument of Valerius 
Messalinus Cotta, which covered half an acre of ground, and to 
the tomb which was once supposed to be that of Licinus the 
barber, famed in satiric verse, the ruins of which are called the 
Torre Selce. This conjecture was founded on two lines of 
Martial, in which the poet boasts that his verses would outlive 
the perishing stones of the sepulchre of Messala, and the marbles 
of Licinus crumbled into dust : 

Et cum rupta situ Messalss saxa jacebunt, 

Altaque cum Licini marmora pulvis erunt. 

Martial, viii. 3. 

The tomb of Licinus gave rise to the well-known epigram of 
Varro Atacinus : 

Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet, at Cato parvo, 
Pompeius nullo, credimus esse Deos ? 

Meyer, Epigramm. Lat. i. 77. 

Unfortunately, we know, on the distinct and unanswerable au- 
thority of a scholiast on Persius, that the tomb of Licinus was 
not on the Via Appia, but at the second milestone on the Via 
Salaria. The mischievous critics too (see Smith's ' Dictionary,' 
art. Licinus), will have it that the tomb in question belonged to 
Licinus, a Graul, a slave, afterwards steward of Julius Csesar, 
not to the barber. We cannot consent to blunt the point of the 
epigram on Licinus. But there seems no doubt that the great 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 457 



circular tomb which bears the name of Cotta (see PI. xxxviii.) 
was raised by the son to his far greater father, Messala Corvinus. 
Cotta himself was no undistinguished man: in the words of 
Paterculus (Veil. Paterc. ii. 112), he was nobler from his cha- 
racter than from his descent, worthy of being the son of his 
father Corvinus. Two of Ovid's melancholy Epistles from 
Pontus are addressed to Messalinus Cotta (i. 7, ii. 2). The 
exiled poet entreats Cotta to exert in his favour the eloquence 
which he inherits from his father : 

Vivit enim in vobis facundi lingua parentis. 

He implores him by the shade of his father, whom Ovid had 
honoured from his infancy, to intercede with 'the Grods and 
the Caesars,' in the poet's belief one and the same : — 

Hoc pater ille tuus, primo mini cultus ab gevo, 
Si quid habet sensus umbra diserta, petit.' 

As to the father, Messala Corvinus, there were few men, at 
least of his own age, on whose monument the Roman might 
look with greater pride, or receive a more solemn admonition 
by contrasting his fame, wealth, influence, endowments, and 
accomplishments, with the narrow urn and few ashes, the sole 
sad witnesses to his mortality. The high character of Messala 
might almost give dignity to his political tergiversations, in 
those dark days of Rome, almost inevitable. The consummate 
general, who held a high command in the anti-Csesarean army 
at Philippi, almost achieved the Cesarean naval victory at 
Actium. Not only was he a great general and statesman, he 
was poet, historian, grammarian, orator. He was one of the 
best and wisest counsellors of Augustus, the dear friend of 
Horace and Tibullus, probably of Virgil, and the nursing father 
of Ovid's poetry. The tomb — there is no reason to doubt but 
that it is the one alluded to by Martial, as among the most re- 
nowned, renowned to a proverb — was worthy of the fame of 
Messala. 

The line of tombs was here broken for some distance by the 



458 



PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHKES. [Essay VIII. 



magnificent villa of the Quintilii. The scholar cannot but 
think of that Quintilius, dear to Virgil and so touchingly la- 
mented by Horace. We would fain behold his tomb, even if 
it bore the dreary and despairing inscription which consigned 
him to eternal sleep, — 

Ergo Quintilium perpetuus sopor 
Urget? 

But the villa belonged to Quintilii of a much later age, 
though perhaps of not less distinguished virtue. It seems to 
have been a sumptuous palace, though it may be difficult to 
determine which part belonged to the Quintilii, and which" 
arose at the command of its Imperial usurper. But no doubt 
its beauty and splendour were fatal to its owners. The front 
to the road (see PI. xxxiii.) exhibited the portico of a temple 
of Hercules, a noble vestibule, and a rich nympheum. Behind 
was a large space, with courts, baths, gardens, watercourses, and 
all which ministered to the luxury of those luxurious times. 
We may fairly conclude that the desire of confiscating this 
noble possession aggravated the jealousy of Commodus of the 
virtues of its masters. The brothers Quintilii were a noble ex- 
ample of emulous ability and success. Together they were 
consuls, together governors of Achaia and of Pannonia under 
the just rule of the Antonines. In death they were not di- 
vided. On the discovery of some unproved conspiracy, which 
involved the whole race, the brothers were cut off by the ruffian 
Commodus, and Commodus became the lord of this tempting- 
property. 

We plunge back (and this adds to the singular interest of 
the whole line of monuments) from the days of the declining- 
empire to the days of the kings. Near the fifth milestone there 
are two large mounds, popularly known as the tombs of the 
Horatii and Curiatii. Let us leave the legend undisturbed, 
and take no more notice of those wicked disenchanters of our 
old beliefs (they will leave us at least the poetry, if they scatter 
our history into a mist), than the Emperor of the French has 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHKES. 459 

vouchsafed to bestow on the learned labours of Niebuhr and of 
the lamented Sir George Lewis. 

We cannot, however, pass the remains of the countless monu- 
ments, which Canina has raised on each side of the Appian 
Way, without remarking the simple grace and beauty of many 
of them ; grace and beauty which arises almost entirely out of 
that delicate sense of proportion which seems to have been in- 
tuitive in the Grecian mind, and is the soul of true Grecian 
architecture, indeed of all its art. These were borrowed by 
the Eomans, or imitated in their happier hours, or were pro- 
bably kept alive by the employment of Greek workmen or 
artists. In what does this harmony, this music of architecture, 
which pervaded Greek art, from the noblest temple to the 
humblest monument, consist ? Is it subject to measure and 
rule ? Why is it so rare in almost all works but those which 
are purely Greek ? 

Few of these tombs bear names of any note ; and we are in 
general grievously disappointed when they do. We read the 
name of Pompey ; but Pompey, it is well known, had not the 
barren honour of a tomb on the foreign shore where he fell ; 
the pillar which long bore his name, near the mouth of the 
Nile, has long passed over to a more rightful and far baser 
owner. Sextus Pompeius Justus, whose name appears on a 
stately tomb, was but a freedman of that great house. But 
near the fourth milestone was the scene of the luxurious life, 
of the miserable death, and, in all probability, stood the humble 
tomb of a man to whom, of all Eomans, it is perhaps the most 
difficult to do justice, and no more than justice. Here were 
the gardens of the 6 too wealthy ' Seneca ; here took place that 
slow death, at the command of his pupil Nero, described (we 
urge our readers to refresh their memory with the wonderful 
passage) in the 'Annals of Tacitus' (xv. 71 et seq.). Not 
merely does Tacitus say of Seneca, at the time of his death, 
' quartum apud lapidem, suburbano rure constiterat,' but a 
fragment has been discovered bearing the name of the tribune 
of the Praetorian cohort, Granius (Silvanus), who was said to 



460 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHKES. [Essay VIII. 

have been commissioned to order Seneca to put himself to 
death. Canina conjectures that Granius may have obtained the 
villa as the reward of his services. If Seneca did not live, 
at least he died, as a philosopher. It is harsh, perhaps, to 
charge his memory with the crimes of his ungovernable pupil ; 
scarcely possible to relieve his memory from cowardly acquies- 
cence in some of the worst of those crimes. His philosophy, as 
shown in his writings, is even a more difficult problem. Ex- 
quisite gleams of premature humanity, which have tempted 
many, in utter ignorance of the history of the times, which 
makes such a notion impossible, to refer them to a higher and 
purer source, even to intercourse with St. Paul; a Stoicism 
which strives to be calm and majestic, but is far too theatrical, 
laboured, and emphatic for true commanding majesty : all in 
a detestable style, — a rope of sand, as it has been described ; 
brief epigrams for sentences, without cohesion, flow, natural 
sequence or harmony. The remains of Seneca, Tacitus tells 
us, were burned on the spot ; we may conjecture that his ashes 
were gathered into some cheap urn. Canina imagines a monu- 
ment ; and in a head, upon a fragment discovered near the 
spot, he would recognise the likeness of the philosopher. And 
he has explained, too, with singular ingenuity, a bas-relief 
(PI. xix.), representing, from Herodotus, the scene of the 
death of the son of Croesus, which might have belonged to the 
tomb. Of this we presume he would suppose the moral to 
be, that no one should be called happy before the day of his 
death : — 

Dicique beatus 
Ante obitum nemo, supremaque funera debet. 

Another mile and we stand before the colossal Cecilia 
Metella tomb. This was within the older circuit of all visitors 
to Rome, and close to it are the ruins of the mediseval fortress 
of the Graetani. Byron has made this noble ruin his own. 
Even in his descriptive poetry (and when he was in the vein 
what descriptive poet was equal to Byron ?) there are few pas- 
sages of equal truth and sublimity. We cannot refrain from 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 461 



quoting a few lines — would we had space for more — especially 
the first stanza, which so well displays the present aspect of 
the monument : — 

But who was she, the Lady of the dead 

Tomb'd in a palace ? Was she chaste and fair ? 

Worthy a king's, or more, a Roman's bed ? 

What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear ? 

What daughter of her beauties was the heir ? 

How lived — how loved — how died she ? Was she not 

So honour'd — and conspicuously there, 

Where meaner relics must not dare to rot, 

Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot ? 

Thus much alone we know — Metella died, 

The wealthiest Roman's wife : Behold his love or pride. 

Within the last three miles from Rome the approach to the 
great city was marked by the larger intermingling of other 
stately and sacred edifices with the monuments of the dead. 
There was the temple of the Deus Eediculus, indicating the 
height from which Hannibal is said to have surveyed and then 
turned his back on unassailable Eome. No wonder ! For 
Hannibal, ever conqueror in the field — at Trebia, at Thrasy- 
mene, at Cannae, — was baffled by almost every town which he 
attempted to besiege ; for his army was utterly unfit for such 
operations, unprovided with the materials for a siege, — the 
mining tools, the hands accustomed to use them, the engines, 
and all the apparatus necessary for such work. Terror or trea- 
chery opened the gates of fatal Capua. 

After this appear, on one side of the road, the valley and 
fountain of Egeria, of which the holy romance, the venerable 
reminiscences of Numa, were, to the indignation of Juvenal, 
profaned in his day with its occupation by the miserable Jews. 
These were no longer flourishing merchants — it may have been 
already money-lenders, for such, as we know from Cicero, they 
were in Asia Minor — but crushed down, by the hatred excited 
by the obstinate war, and by the influx of slaves (now scattered 
by millions throughout the Roman Empire), into mean pedlars, 



462 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHEES. [Essay VIII. 



and defiling the soil and the waters of this sacred spot with 
their provision-baskets and pallets of straw. 

The noble arch of Drusus perhaps bestrode the way; and 
other temples crowded the road up to the Capenian Grate. 
But there were monuments too, and those singularly illustra- 
tive of almost every period in the annals of Eome. There was 
the tomb of Eomolus, the son of the last Pagan Emperor of 
Eome. Maxentius, perhaps in honour of that son, had laid 
out a vast circus, as though the votive offering of expiring 
Paganism. There was the tomb of Greta, who fell by the 
fratricidal hand of Caracalla, a fearful memorial of the crimes 
of what we call the second period of the empire. There were 
the sepulchres of the freedmen of Augustus, and of the freed- 
men of Livia, both, as might be expected, very capacious. 
The ashes of Augustus himself, as is well known, reposed in 
the Campus Martins. There was a tomb, which, though raised 
by a private man, must have been of unexampled splendour, 
that of Priscilla, the wife of Abascantius, a favourite of 
Domitian. It is well, among all the monuments of pride and 
crime, to dwell on this one prodigal memorial of true domestic 
affection ; and this tomb, and the inmate of the tomb, are de- 
scribed in a work of one of the later Eoman poets, worthy to live. 
Like all the verse of Statins, the consolation, as we may call 
it, inscribed to Abascantius, is in many parts strained, forced, 
exaggerated ; but there are lines with a depth of tenderness 
unsurpassed — difficult to equal, in Latin verse. He describes 
the dying moments of Priscilla : — 

Jamque cadunt vultus, oculisque novissimus error, 
Obtusseque aures, nisi cum vox sola mariti 
Noscitur. Ilium unum media de morte reversa 
Mens videt : ilium segris circumdat for titer ulnis 
Immotas obversa genas, nec sole supremo 
Lumina, sed dulci mavult satiare marito. 

All Eome poured forth to see the costly funeral procession 
of Priscilla, to the Appian Way, on the banks of the Almo, 
near the temple of Cybele : — - 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 463 



Est locus ante urbem, qua primum surgitur ingens 
Appia, quaque Italo gemitus Almone Cybele 
Ponit. 

She was interred (it should seem an unusual course), not 
burned ; her husband could not have endured the sight and the 
tumult of a cremation : — 

Nec enim fumantia busta, 
Clam orem que rogi potuit perferre. 

The tomb must have been most sumptuous. All around 
stood, in niches, marble statues of Priscilla, in the garb and 
attributes of various goddesses : — - 

Mox in varias mutata novaris 
Effigies : hoc sere Ceres, hoc lucida Gnossis, 
Illo Maia tholo, Venus hoc non iniproba saxo. 
Accipiunt vultus, haud indignata, decoros 
Numina. — Statu Silvce, v. 1. 

Nearest to the walls of Eome, as though holding the guar- 
dians of her impregnable gates, was the well-known tomb of 
the Scipios. The greatest of the race, Africanus, reposed not 
in this sepulchre; he died, and his ashes remained, at 
Liternum. But there is no reason to doubt that his place was 
rilled by the great father of Eoman poetry, the conservator of 
her legendary annals, Ennius. And surely we may refer to the 
whole race the splendid lines of Lucretius. ' Scipio, the 
thunderbolt of war, the terror of Carthage, bequeathed his 
bones to the earth, even as if he had been the vilest of slaves ; 
and wilt thou whose life, even while thou art living and in the 
light of day, is little more than death, wilt thou struggle, and 
be indignant that thou must die ? ' 

Scipiades fulmen belli, Carthaginis horror 

Ossa dedit terrse, proinde ac famul infimus esset. 

Tu vero dubitabis et indignabere obire, 

Mortua quoi vita est prope jam vivo atque videnti ? 

Lugret. iii. 1047-48, 1058-59. 



46 4 PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHEES. [Essay VIII. 



Thus, along each of the great roads which led to Eome, was, 
as it were, a great necropolis, a line of stately sepulchres, in 
which lay the remains of her illustrious dead, and of those who 
might aspire to the rank of the illustrious. We may conjec- 
ture indeed from Cicero that, even in his day, the most famous, 
and hallowed by the most famous men, was the Appian ne- 
cropolis. In the well-known passage, where Tully would infer 
the immortality of the soul from the greatness of the older 
Eomans, he says: 'When you go out of the Capenian Grate, 
where you behold the tombs of Calatinus, of the Scipios, 
of the Servilii, of the Metelli, can you suppose that they are 
miserable?' ('An tu egressus porta Capena, cum Calatini, 
Scipionum, Serviliorum, Metellorum sepulchra vides, miseros 
putas illos ? ') 

But during the early Empire appeared in Eome a religious 
community, among whom reverence for the dead, a profound 
feeling for the preservation of the buried body in its integrity, 
was not only a solemn duty, but a deep-rooted passion. The 
Christians not only inherited from their religious ancestors the 
Jews the ancient and immemorial usage of interment, but this 
respect for the dead was clasped and riveted, as it were, round 
their hearts by the great crowning event of their faith. Christ, 
in their belief, had risen bodily from the grave ; a bodily resur- 
rection was to be their glorious privilege. Some, many in- 
deed, no doubt in the first ages of Christianity, looked for this 
resuscitation as speedy, imminent, almost immediate. Their 
great Apostle indeed had taught a more sublime, less material 
tenet ; he had spoken of glorified bodies, not natural bodies : 
Flesh and blood cannot enter into the kingdom of God, neither 
doth corruption inherit incorruption. But the sanctity of the 
body committed to the earth was still rooted in the very depths 
of their souls ; the burning of the dead was to them a profana- 
tion. Long before relics came to be worshipped, the mangled 
and scattered limbs, it might be, of the confessor or martyr, 
were a pious trust, to be watched over with reverential care, to 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 



465 



be preserved with tender affection. This feeling is well de- 
scribed by Prndentius : 

Hinc maxima cura sepulcris 

Impenditur, hinc resolutos 

Honor ultimus accipit artus, 

Et funeris ambitus ornat. 

Quidnam tibi saxa cavata, 

Quid pulcra volunt monumenta, 

Nisi quod res creditur illis 

Non mortua sed data somno ? — Cathem. x. 

This community had grown with wonderful rapidity, so as, 
even in the reign of Nero, to be exposed to a cruel — it might 
have been supposed an exterminating — persecution. They 
were of sufficient importance to be cast forth, as it were a 
scapegoat, to the populace, who were maddened, after the fire 
of Borne, by the most blind and furious passions of our nature, 
panic, revenge, superstition ; and perhaps to divert the thoughts 
of the multitude from the Government, against whom some 
suspicious murmurs had begun to spread. 

But the religion had a life which defied, which gained 
strength from persecution. During the reign of Domitian, in 
Rome, certain members of the imperial family were accused of 
belonging to this, for a time, proscribed race. What truth 
there may be in the accusation, we do not distinctly know (the 
whole transaction is very obscure) ; yet we would fain indulge 
the hope that, in their death, these victims had the consolations 
of Christianity. 

And still the Christians grew and multiplied throughout the 
Eoman world — in Eome especially, the centre of that world. 
There can be little doubt that, during what has been called 
the golden age in the Eoman history, the reigns of Hadrian, 
Antoninus Pius, and that of Marcus Aurelius down to the great 
Eastern plague, they were in constant unchecked accretion ; 
they were in still advancing proportion to the pagan popula- 
tion. Of this wonderful revolution during those times history 
is silent ; for the best of reasons, because there is no history. 

n~ h 



466 



PAG- AN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHBES. [Essay VIII. 



Of the long reign of Antoninus Pius we have a few pages in the 
volume of the Augustan historians. But, as the living Christians 
increased in numbers, so also must the number of their dead. 
That too, which, as it were, narrowed the space required for 
interment, the practice of cremation, by which the body was 
reduced to the dimensions of a small urn, which contained the 
ashes, and might be respectfully stowed away in the small 
niches of a columbarium — this practice now almost universal 
among the great and wealthy (Statius, as we have seen, 
mentions the case of Priscilla as something rare and unusual), 
was to the Christians a revolting abomination. Another cir- 
cumstance perhaps added to their difficulty. The tomb of 
the great family might admit, as a special privilege, the 
remains of a few faithful and favourite freedmen, even of 
slaves ; but these added only a few urns with their ashes ; and, 
though it is pleasing to contemplate the usage, as showing the 
growth of a more humane feeling which was stealing over cruel 
Eoman slavery, it was exceptional rather than common. But 
to the Christian the body of the freedman or slave (no doubt 
these social distinctions still subsisted) was as holy as that of 
his master. He had the same hope of the resurrection ; to 
him extended that equality which alone can level all earthly dis- 
tinctions — the same title to immortality. The lowest Christian 
was equal to his master in the hope of rising in glory from the 
grave. What then was to be done with Christian slaves ? in- 
deed with Christian poor ? Were they to be left, abandoned, 
unregarded, unmourned, to be borne on the cheap sandapila by 
those whose office it was, and cast into the horrible pits on the 
Esquiline, where the scanty earth could not (as in the time of 
Horace) protect them from the prowling wolf and the obscene 
bird of prey? We must, indeed, observe that, even among 
the heathen Eomans, there had grown up some respect for the 
remains of the poor. Not only imperial personages, such as 
Augustus and Livia, founded common sepulchres for their 
household, their freedmen, and slaves. It was not an un- 
common act of magnificence and generosity to dig or to build 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 



467 



a columbarium (so called from its likeness to a dovecote with 
its rows of niches, one above another) for the poor or for slaves. 
One, undoubtedly heathen, situated not far from the tomb of 
the Scipios, has been described by Campana in the 4 Bulletino 
dell' Instituto,' 1840, p. 135 ; another, as clearly pagan, in the 
Vigna Codini, described by Herzen (' Annali d' Instituto,' 1856), 
contained niches for 600 urns. To the columbarium was 
usually attached an ustrinum, which showed that the practice 
of burning the dead was extended to the poor and to slaves. 
There were speculators also, who, like our cemetery companies, 
let out columbaria and niches in them. There were burial 
clubs too (sodalitates), which received a monthly payment, 
and had a common chest, from which was paid, on the decease, 
of each member, a sum for his funeral expenses, funeraticum. 
The reader will find very curious details on this subject, with 
references to the various scattered authorities, chiefly from 
inscriptions, in the 'Komische Alterthiimer ' of Becker, con- 
tinued by Marquardt, Th. iv. pp. 154, 155; Th. v. pp. 372, 
373. 

There were family sepulchres too, and gentilitian sepulchres, 
from the earliest period, in Eome. The Christians would con- 
sider themselves very naturally as one great family, and would 
speedily grow to a gens ; and every religious feeling would 
induce them to desire that, as they were to each other 6 loving 
and pleasant in their lives, so in their death they would not 
be divided.'' But not only separate, but far more spacious 
burial-places would soon be required for them, than for those 
whose ashes were crowded together in narrow urns. And 
where were these to be found ? Within the walls of the city 
interment was sternly forbidden by the law. These laws were 
maintained in strict force even under the Christian Emperors. 
When the superstitious desire had grown up of being buried 
under or near the altars of the churches to which the relics of 
saints and martyrs had been transferred, the practice was 
still interdicted with the utmost severity. That furtive piety 
sometimes eluded this law (we are irresistibly reminded of one 

H H 2 



468 



PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. 



of the cleverest scenes in 6 Les Miserables ') is shown by the 
strength and the frequent reiteration of the enactments. 5 

Nor could the cemeteries of the Christians be conveniently 
constructed at any great distance from the city. The principal 
catacombs are all within three miles of the walls. But within 
this distance, crowded as it already must have been along all 
the great roads with heathen cemeteries and monuments, and 
with houses, gardens, vineyards, large plots of ground would 
be, no doubt, very costly. Here and there a wealthy Christian 
might devote a vineyard or a garden to this holy purpose. It 
was possible, it should seem, to secure by law the peaceable 
transmission of such hallowed places either to natural heirs, 
or even to religious descendants ; yet there might be times 
when their violation, their desecration, might be enjoined by 
persecuting rulers or by a fanatic populace. As the living were 
not yet secure on the face of the earth, so neither were the dead 
under its immediate surface. But why not deeper beneath the 
earth ? Why might not subterranean chambers be formed, com- 
paratively inaccessible ; separate, as it were, in holy seclusion 
alike from the stir of the living world and the intermingling 
of profaner dead ? Might not the bodies of the brethren be 
deposited entire, only subject to natural decay, to await in Grod's 
good time the glad day of resurrection ? 

From these deep-seated feelings, from this necessity (inge- 
nious, inventive, keen-sighted, as necessity ever is), began the 
famous Eoman Catacombs. It is to be observed, too, that in 
all probability the Christians were not, if we may so speak, the 
inventors or first discoverers of these subterranean receptacles 
for the dead. The Jews had the same, if not so strong, yet a 
profound hereditary aversion to any mode of sepulture but 

5 ' Ne alicujus fallax et arguta sollertia se ab hujus prsecepti intentione sub- 
ducat, atque Apostolorum et Martyrum sedem humanis eorporibus existimet esse 
concessam, ab bis quoque, ut a reliquo civitatis, noverint se atque intelligant esse 
submotos,' — quoted by M. S. de Rossi, Analisi, p. 43. M. de Rossi must excuse 
us if we dismiss with a quiet smile what be seems inclined to treat with gravity, 
an inscription in the church of S. Pudenziana, near an altar of that church, com- 
memorating the discovery of the bodies of five Holy Martyrs, with the sponge yet 
red with their blood. And this in the year 1803 ! ! ! 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 



469 



interment. It is unquestionable that the earliest Catacombs 
were Jewish. One was discovered by Bosio, at a very early 
period in the investigation, undoubtedly Jewish, near their 
great settlement on the Vatican hill ; another more recently, 
intended for those who, to Juvenal's indignation, had taken up 
their residence about the romantic but desecrated Valley of 
Egeria. In other parts of Italy Jewish Catacombs have come 
to light, of which there can be no question ; for, instead of the 
usual ornaments and sacred things buried with the Christians 
appear the seven-branched candlestick and other sacred emblems 
of the Jewish faith. 6 

On the Christian Catacombs, we have now before us the first 
volume of what we may consider the classic and authoritative 
work. It bears the name of the Cav. de Eossi ; and could not 
bear a name which would so strongly recommend it to every 
one who takes an interest in this important subject. All who 
have visited Eome will bear witness to the indefatigable 
industry, sagacity, perseverance, even bodily labour, which the 
Cavaliere has devoted to the investigation of the Eoman 
Catacombs. The crowning proof of this has been his discovery, 
by very acute powers of discernment and of reasoning, of the 
true Catacomb of S. Callistus, up to his time misplaced, and 
supposed to be that close to the Church of S. Sebastian. Many 
will bear witness to his extreme courtesy in unfolding to the 
uninitiated as well as to the initiated the secrets of his sub- 
terranean treasure-house. The Cavaliere de Eossi has been 
singularly fortunate also in the zealous co-operation of his 
brother, Michael Stefano de Eossi, a man of very high scientific 
attainments (he exhibited a very curious instrument at our 
Great Exhibition, invented for the purpose of taking accurate 
measurements and levels in the Catacombs, to which we believe a 
prize was awarded), and with a knowledge of geology, which has 
thrown a full and steady light on the origin, extent, boundaries, 
ramifications, construction, and nature of these vast sepulchral 

6 Compare Bosio and Cimetero degli Antichi Ebrei, par Baffaelle Garrucci^ 
Roma, 1862 ; and Milinan, Hist, of the Jews, vol. ii. pp. 456-459. 



470 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. 

excavations. Sig. M. S. de Rossi has contributed a most 
valuable appendix (we are inclined to think that it had been 
better as a preface) to the Cavaliere's volume : at all events 
we should strongly recommend to our readers to begin the book 
at this end. 

One result is triumphantly obtained from these inquiries. 
That the Catacombs, properly so called, are originally and 
exclusively, except the Jewish, Christian. The title prefixed to 
this volume, ' Roma Sotteranea Christiana,' is in every respect 
just and legitimate. It might seem that the discussion of this 
question has been carried on with very unnecessary toil and 
trouble : it might appear a purely historical and archaeological 
problem. Unhappily, on the first discovery of the Catacombs, 
certain Protestant writers — one of considerable name — took it 
into their heads to raise about the most idle controversy which 
ever wasted Christian ink, or tried, we will hardly say Christian, 
temper. The Catacombs were declared to be only old sandpits 
or quarries ; and by some asserted to be Heathen, not Christian 
cemeteries. This narrow Protestant jealousy betrayed not only 
a strange perversity, but a most lamentable misconception of 
the true grounds of the Reformed religion (we fear that we 
must revert to the ungrateful subject), and a surprising igno- 
rance of Christian history. The only questions really raised at 
that time, which caused this senseless Anti-Romanist panic, was 
whether or no the Christians had become very numerous in 
Rome during the first three centuries, and had provided places 
of quiet and secure burial for the brethren. 

The profound and scientific investigations of M. de Rossi 
have not only scattered these follies to the winds, but they 
have dissipated other extravagant notions, entertained by some 
of the most learned of the Roman antiquarians, particularly 
by the Padre Marchi, who perhaps occupies the highest rank 
among the searchers of the Catacombs, between Bosio and the 
Cavaliere de Rossi. Marchi, impressed, perhaps bewildered, 
by the vast expanding labyrinth of galleries and floors which 
he had begun to trace, had imagined a complete network of 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHKES. 471 

catacombs, extending all round Eome, connected by secret ways, 
and, it might seem from some of bis expressions, spreading 
under the whole city. But science, real science, forces men 
back to good sense and truth. The fact is, that the Catacombs, 
vast as they were, and found in greater or less numbers, in 
greater extent and depth, on almost every side of Eome, were 
directed, limited, necessarily self-adapted to the conformation 
of the land and to the geological strata, some of which received 
them with welcome and security, others inhospitably repelled 
them, being altogether unfit for such use. 

Without going deep into the geological formation of the 
basin of the Tiber, in which lies Eome with her seven hills, 
and amid the adjacent valleys and heights, there are mainly 
three kinds of deposit left by the successive changes in the 
geology of the region. These are (the scientific reader will 
find the whole subject simply and clearly developed in the third 
chapter of the Appendix) the tufa litoide, the tufa granulare, 
and the tuf a f Habile. From the first of these came probably 
much of the stone, used when Augustus transformed the city 
of brick to what his flatterers called a city of marble ; from 
the latter the pozzulana, and the sand used for building and 
for other ordinary industrial purposes. Of these the first was 
too hard, it would have been enormously costly, to hew it 
out into the spacious and intricate necropolis, which must be 
perpetually enlarging its dimensions to receive the remains of 
the growing and multiplying Christian population. The latter 
was far too loose and crumbling for the purpose of secure and 
lasting burial. But the second, the tufa granulare, formed 
chiefly of volcanic deposits, was not too hard to be worked, yet 
was solid enough to make walls for long and intricate passages 
or ambulacra, to be hewn into arches, vaulting over deep 
recesses, in which the coffins were arranged; and to support 
floor below floor— two, three, four, five— down to the utmost 
depth at which the formation was found. But, of course, 
when these formations so suited for them ceased, the Catacomb 
stopped ; the passage died away (this is De Eossi's expression') 



472 



PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. 



against the Lard rock, or as it approached the crumbling 
pozzulana. The Catacomb must also maintain itself at a 
certain height. If it descended towards the Valley of the 
Tiber, the course of the Anio, or even of smaller streams like 
the Almone, it would be liable to be flooded, or at least suffer 
from the filtration of water, dangerous, if not to its security, 
yet to its decent propriety. In parts it might expand into a 
more spacious area, where, we know not how early, might be the 
lowly chapel, and, in times of persecution, the place of refuge 
from cruel death. We will translate a passage from M. de 
Eossi, which appears to us to illustrate all this, as well as the 
situations of the chief Catacombs, with clearness, and at the 
same time with brevity:— 

All that part of the ground which lies to the left of the Tiber, 
perhaps because it was more depressed before it emerged from the 
waters, contains these volcanic deposits in greatest abundance. Hence 
in all this region the strata of the granular tufa are of the most spacious 
extent and depth. Therefore almost all the higher summits which 
rise in succession from the 1 Monte Pariolo,' along the old and the 
new Via Salaria, the Nomentana, the Tiburtina, the Pramestina, the 
Labicana, the Asinaria, the Latina, the Appia, and the Ardeatina, 
till they meet again the Valley of the Tiber on the Via Ostiense, 
are suited for the excavation of catacombs, and have been in great 
part devoted to these purposes. Here, moreover, the depth of those 
beaches has been hollowed out, sometimes in four, in some cases even 
in five, floors of galleries, one below the other. But if throughout this 
region the strata are found to an indefinite extent fit for this purpose, 
they are limited by the lie of the land. The valley of the Anio 
forms a boundary about two miles along the Via Salaria and the Via 
Nomentana. On the latter, however, before the valley, interposes itself 
a great barrier of < tufa litoide,' which makes its appearance all along 
this way, and has interrupted here and there the cemetery excavations. 
Besides this, valleys and beds of torrents run along in the same 
direction as the Roman roads, and disgorge themselves into the valley 
of the Anio. 

■ i? 

For the description of the rest of the circuit round to the 
Via Latina and Via Appia, we must refer to the original : — 

The Via Latina, the Appia, the Ardeatina, offer the most extensive 
field for those operations. There, for more than two miles, every 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHKES. 



473 



elevation appears to have been hollowed out, and it forms the most 
celebrated group of these vast and continuous catacombs. This region 
is often broken by the usual courses of the streamlets, especially on 

the Appian and Latin ways, where the Almone flows This 

rapid survey, besides the reasons alleged above, clearly manifests how 
impossible was the general connexion of subterranean Eorne, and 
places in a stronger light the necessity of those laws which I have 
shown to have regulated the excavations, chiefly to protect them from 
the filtration or the flooding of waters. For the rest it is an as- 
certained fact, from the excavations made with the greatest advantages, 
that each of the great cemeteries, having its proper name and separate 
existence, was divided from and independent of the contiguous one, 
even where there appears no natural obstruction to their fusion. Thus, 
for example, the well-known cemeteries of Pretextatus and of Callistus 
were excavated, one on the right, the other on the left, of the Appian 
Way, and extended opposite to each other without any communication. 
If any communication is found between neighbouring or contiguous 
cemeteries, it is irregular, exceptional, and of a later period, and does 
not prove the throwing two distinct catacombs into one. — Appendix, 
pp. 51, 52. 

It is this immense necropolis (that as Eome became Chris- 
tian, and in proportion to its slower or more rapid advance to 
Christianity, grew into the necropolis of Eome) which the 
Cavaliere de Kossi aspires to include in one vast and accurate 
topography. He would penetrate, describe, plan, each of the 
separate provinces of this vast kingdom of the dead. He would 
make the world as intimately acquainted with the extent, the 
divisions, the monuments of subterranean Eome, as generations 
of archaeologists have made known to us the Eome of the upper 
world. It might even seem, from some expressions, that M. 
de Eossi's ambition would not confine itself to suburban Eome, 
but dimly contemplates the iconography of Christian catacombs 
throughout the world. And when we remember that the 
Cavaliere de Eossi is also engaged in a great and exhaustive 
work on Christian inscriptions, of which the first volume has 
appeared (it has unfortunately broken off at the point at which 
we might expect that its historic interest would begin), we 
almost tremble at the boldness of these, though collateral 
indeed, coextensive schemes. We can only express our devout 



474 PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHKES. [Essay VIII. 

hope that M. de Rossi may complete what few of us, we fear, 
can hope to see in their completion. 

The Cavaliere de Rossi certainly possesses eminent qualifi- 
cations for his vast and noble task, — indefatigable industry, 
sagacity almost intuitive and prophetic, the power of combining 
minute circumstances, and drawing out grave and important 
conclusions by a bold induction from mere hints and sugges- 
tions, from words and letters ; a command of the whole wide 
and somewhat obscure and scattered world of archaeology, 
which nothing escapes. The atmosphere of Rome — as is 
inevitable in the case of a man of such deep and absorbing 
enthusiasm — exercises over him an influence which at times 
provokes our severer northern critical spirit, e.g. when he 
gravely refers to the puerile fables in Tertullian, of the dead 
body of a saint which lifted its arms in the attitude of prayer ; 
of another which moved to make room for a saintly partner in 
her narrow bed. At times too he pays far more respect to 
legend than we can admit. (We write as historians and archae- 
ologists, not as Protestants.) Yet on the whole it is impossible 
not to acknowledge and to admire his perfect honesty of 
purpose. If, therefore, here and there we venture to take 
exception at words or arguments, it is in what we firmly 
believe to be the interest of truth, and not without the utmost 
respect and gratitude for his devoted labours. Let us express 
too our hope, that, even in these, to them, hard times, the 
Roman government will not be niggardly, or, if there be any 
difficulty, will not be too lofty to decline aid from external 
quarters for a work of such general Christian interest. 

The first section of M. de Rossi's splendid volume gives the 
history of research and discovery in the Catacombs : he does 
ample justice to his predecessors in these inquiries, from Bosio, 
or those who were before Bosio, though Bosio was, in M. de 
Rossi's fervent language, the Columbus of this new under- 
ground world. After Bosio the study and the real science of 
discovery rather receded than advanced, till the days of M. de 
Rossi's own leader, the second great discoverer, the Padre 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 



475 



Marchi. MarcM's works, though in some points conjectural, 
and not always happily conjectural, yet showed clearly the 
right way, on which he has been followed by his as ingenious 
and more discerning disciple. To all the intermediate inquirers 
M. de Eossi does fair and ample justice ; having ourselves 
investigated the subject with some care, we can bear witness 
to his impartiality. He also distributes in general sound and 
judicious praise, or otherwise, to the more recent writers on the 
Catacombs. 7 The whole of this section, however (our lessening 
space admonishes us), we must pass over, yet not without 
reluctance. We should like to have dwelt on the very curious 
fact, proved beyond doubt by M. de Eossi, that the first ex- 
plorers of the Catacombs, the first whose names, written in 
modern times, appear upon the walls, were neither industrious 
antiquaries nor the zealous Faithful, eager to show their 
reverence for the hallowed remains of their Christian ancestors. 
They were some of those half-Paganising philosophers, some- 
what Epicurean we fear, a certain Pompeius Lsetus with his 
disciples, who endeavoured to blend the newly awakening 
ancient philosophy with Christianity, and Christianity rather 
receding from than maintaining its endangered ascendancy. 
Where the Christians used to seek refuge from their heathen 
persecutors, these heathenising Christians concealed their bold 
speculative discussions, perhaps certain feastings not less ill- 
suited to the place, from the jealous vigilance of the Christian 
authorities. 

Nor can we follow our author in his singularly ingenious 
elucidation of the site, the names, the topography of the ceme- 
teries, which lie hid near or under every one of the Eoman 
roads. For this purpose he has searched, with unwearied 
industry, the martyrologies, the lists of the Popes, the ritual- 
istic books, down to the Pilgrimages, which border on, if they 

7 We cannot bub be amused with the struggle between M. de Eossi 's candour 
and his courtesy when writing on the splendid French work on the Catacombs, 
that of M. Perret— a beautiful book, so beautiful as to be utterly worthless to the 
archaeologist or historian : it waDts only two things, truth and fidelity. 



476 



PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. 



do not belong to, the Middle Ages. We might demur to the 
use of these very questionable and suspicious authorities, where 
history or even art is concerned ; but for the traditions of the 
names by which the cemeteries were known, the saints or 
martyrs from which they were commonly called, the shrines or 
churches which were built over them, and by which their 
ancient names were preserved, this legendary lore may be 
trusted if used with discretion and discrimination. 

But we must hasten back to the Appian Way, the scene of 
M. de Eossi's own extraordinary discoveries. We must confine 
ourselves to the three great cemeteries on either side of this 
road ; and as we have rapidly, with M. Canina, surveyed the 
monuments of Eoman greatness, in its Pagan days, above the 
earth, so descend with M. de Eossi under the earth, to the 
memorials of her no less wonderful greatness when gradually 
becoming Christianized or entirely Christian. The Christians 
indeed did not raise the stupendous mounds, the mountains, 
as it were, of marble, encircled with countless statues, the 
stately and harmonious and the graceful, if humbler tombs, 
which lined the whole road from Aricia to the Capenian Grate. 
But assuredly there is something not less stupendous (we use 
the word advisedly) in the immense and intricate wilderness of 
galleries, ambulacra, arched alcoves with their layers of sar- 
cophagi one above another, their lucernaria for light or venti- 
lation, their stairs, straight or winding ; and all this not on one 
level only, but floor beneath floor, one, two, four, five, hewn out 
on a labyrinthine yet harmonious and economic plan. And all 
this was designed and executed from reverence and from love 
of the brethren, to preserve their sacred bodies, as far as might 
be, whole, undisturbed, inviolate, for the day of resurrection. 
Let the reader examine the ground-plot of the great cemetery 
of Callistus, among the plates to M. de Eossi's work. It repre- 
sents the several floors, distinguished by lines of different 
colours, with all the passages, galleries, alcoves, or wider areas 
in each. Network is perhaps a feeble description of this vast 
and intricate maze ; a spider's web seen through the glass of a 



Eissay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 



477 



naturalist, or rather four or five spider-webs, one within the 
other, would seem a more fitting illustration ; all the threads 
spun out with infinite perplexity, yet with a certain unity, and 
converging as it were to one common entrance. 

The two subjects, however, to which we would confine our- 
selves, are the history and the archaeology of the Catacombs. 
Their origin, extension, and use, singularly coincide, we rejoice 
to observe, with the views which we have long formed of the 
growth, progress, and development of Christianity in Eome. 
Out of that growth and development they grew and developed 
themselves naturally and of necessity. 

Of the first preaching of Christianity in Eome, and the 
sudden interruption of that preaching, by the Neronian persecu- 
tion, the Catacombs, then unformed, can of course give no 
record. If there be truth in the tradition of the preaching and 
martyrdom of St. Peter at Rome, the secret of his first burial- 
place on the Vatican lies beneath the mighty monument to 
his memory, the ponderous and immovable dome of St. Peter's. 
The burial-place of St. Paul, of whose martyrdom there can be 
no doubt, is assigned, by probable tradition, to the Ostian road, 
near that spot where that noble old church S. Paolo fuori delle 
Mura stood, which has risen from its ashes in our days in such 
majestic splendour. There are indeed obdurate sceptics who, 
from the silence of St. Paul's Epistles and other not despicable 
arguments, still doubt whether St. Peter ever was at Rome. 
That there should be such persons may perhaps be heard in 
Rome with a contemptuous or compassionate smile of incre- 
dulity, such as good St. Augustine wore when men talked of 
the Antipodes ; yet these are men too who believe themselves 
to be good Christians, and persuade others that they are so by 
the not untrustworthy evidence of their Christian lives. But 
even the hardest of these Pyrrhonists will scarcely doubt that 
in the latter half of the second century (as shown by the letter 
of Dionysius in Eusebius and the passage, in mutilated Latin, , 
of Irenseus) the belief in the foundation of the Roman Church 
by St. Peter and St. Paul had become a tenet generally 



478 



PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. 



received in the West. Nor can there be any reasonable question 
that what were supposed to be the remains of the two great 
Apostles were removed to one of the Catacombs on the Appian 
Way, to be afterwards carried back for security to Eome. 
Even this however rests on tradition — but on tradition, which 
history may accept without reserve. If little is known of 
those older times (for our real voucher for the Neronian 
persecution is after all the heathen Tacitus), perhaps less is 
certain as to that of Domitian. We would fain believe with 
M. de Eossi, that the Domitilla, the relative of the Emperor, 
who suffered with the Consul Flavins Clemens for atheism 
(generally, and we think justly, interpreted Christianity), 
bequeathed her name to a catacomb on the road to Ardea, 
possibly constructed under some villa or garden belonging 
to her. 

But from the accession of Nerva the Church of Eome was 
in long and undisturbed peace. And here we must protest 
against the extraordinary and utterly unwarranted language 
used by many who know no better, by many who must know 
better, but who with one voice, from mistaken devotion, or 
indulgence in poetic phrases, we hope not from wilful decep- 
tion, write and speak of the history of the Christians as one 
long persecution; who describe the Catacombs not as their 
place of repose after death, but of their actual living ; as their 
only dwelling-places, their only churches ; who call them for 
two or three continuous centuries lucifugce, as if always shroud- 
ing themselves in darkness from the face of their enemies, — 
as a people constantly and habitually under the earth. We 
might have supposed that Old Dodwell's unanswered and 
unanswerable essay, 6 De Paucitate Martyrum,' had never been 
written. Poor Dodwell ! his fate has been hard, but we fear 
that he was the author of his own fate. The honest old 
Nonjuror frightened even the most faithful of the Faithful by 
his wild paradox, that the immortality of the soul depended 
entirely on baptism— we suspect orthodox baptism. And the 
Nonjuror unhappily lay in the way of Lord Macaulay. who, 



Essay YIIL] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 



479 



scanning with his searching eye this and his other absurdities, 
has devoted to him a page or two of withering and undying 
scorn. Yet if Lord Macaulay, who read almost everything, had 
read the 6 Dissertations on Irenaeus and Cyprian,' especially the 
treatise 'De Paucitate,' he would not have been content with a 
few extenuating phrases on Dodwell's undoubted sincerity and 
erudition ; he would have hailed him as perhaps the first who, 
before Mosheim, let in the light of historic truth into the 
thick jungle of legend, which darkened and bewildered the 
early Christian annals. Dodwell's treatise was refuted, as it 
was said, by the learned Benedictine, Dom Euinart. But the 
refutation was the best confirmation of Dodwell's views. The 
6 Sincera Acta Martyrum ' might have taken the title, as com- 
pared with the Bollandists and other martyrologies, of 6 De 
Paucitate Martyrum.' 

During all this long period, from Nerva to the middle of 
the reign of Marcus Aurelius (from 96 to about 166), and so 
onward to the great persecution under Decius (a.d. 2-49, 250), 
the Christians, if exposed here and there, and at times, to local 
persecutions, were growing in unchecked and still expanding 
numbers : — 

In the following times (the year after the accession of Nerva), 
during which many good emperors held the sceptre and the sway, 
the Church having endured no assault from her enemies, stretched 

out her hands to the East and to the West The long peace 

was broken, and after this arose that execrable creature Decius, who 
plagued the Church. 

These are no words of ours ; they are the words of Lactantius. 
Can any one read the defiant and boastful * Apology ' of Tertul- 
lian, written probably in the reign of Severus, making all 
allowance for the vehemence of the orator, the passionate 
character of the man, or the African fire of his diction, 4 we fill 
your cities, islands, castles, municipalities, councils, even your 
camps, your tribes, your demesnes, your palaces, your senate, 
your forum. We leave you only your temples ' (he might have 
added your burial-places), c. 37, and suppose the Christians 



480 



PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay Vllt. 



subject to that perpetual persecution ? Must we adduce also 
Tertullian's positive assertion, 4 that the impious and insane 
laws against the Christians were not carried out by Trajan, by 
Hadrian, by Vespasian, by Antoninus, by Verus ?' (c. 5.) Were 
these words spoken as relating to those who could not live in 
the light of day, who might not bury their dead in peace, even 
in the vast capital of the world? The truth is, that the 
persecutions during the reign of Trajan were altogether con- 
nected with circumstances in the East — very remarkable 
circumstances, as has been shown in Dean Milman's 6 Hist, of 
Christianity.' 8 Ignatius, the one undoubted martyr, was sent 
to Eome to suffer death, but implored his Christian brethren 
in Eome not to intercede in his behalf — a clear proof that they 
were in no danger. Pliny's persecutions in Bithynia were 
checked rather than authorized by Trajan. Dom Kuinart (we 
cite him rather than Dodweil) has two martyrs during the long- 
reign of Hadrian, S. Symphorosa (this is of very late date), 
who had seven sons, and S. Felicitas ; she had also seven sons 
who suffered with their mother. Surely this, even to the least 
critical, is legend, if there be legend. The reign of Antoninus 
the Pious, though distinguished by pagan zeal, shown in the 
venerable and magnificent temples erected, especially in Egypt 
and in the East, did not belie the gentleness of his character 
by shedding Christian blood (there are one or two very- 
questionable cases, as that of the Pope Telesphorus). It has 
also been shown in the same 4 History of Christianity,' how the 
circumstances of the Empire under Marcus the Philosopher 
caused temporary and local persecutions against the Christians. 

8 Except as illustrating what men will believe and will write, it is hardly worth 
noticing the romance (we fear got up for a special purpose) of the Catacomb, at 
the seventh mile on the Via Nomentana, called that of S. Alessandro, said to have 
been a martyr-bishop of Rome in the reign of Trajan. We have visited the spot, 
where a church, if we read right a subterranean church, of the time of Trajan, 
is traced out, according to the authorized pattern of later days, with all its divi- 
sions, and columns, pulpits, ambones, &c. At all events, whatever the mound of 
ruin conceals, that building was always above-ground. Read (and with astonish- 
ment) the Breve Notizia intorno aV Oratorio e alia Catacomba di 8. Alessandro 
a 7 vii. miglio delta Via Nomentana. Roma, 1857. 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHKISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 481 



On every side darkness seemed gathering over Rome. The 
Marcomannian war on the Danube, the Eastern war on the 
Euphrates, and, far worse than the war, the terrible plague, 
brought back by the triumphant legions of Rome, had raised a 
mad panic throughout the Empire. Victims must be found 
to appease the angry, the insulted, the deserted gods. 6 The 
Christians to the lions!' was the general cry; and to this 
period belong the martyrdom of Polycarp and the martyrs of 
Lyons, of which the pa thetic description seems so authentic, 
and is so well known ; perhaps the fate of Justin Martyr in 
Rome. It is curious that, as far as we observe, perhaps some- 
what hastily, we find no record of the Martyr Philosopher in 
any part of the catacombs. Were any of the catacomb churches 
built in his honour, or consecrated by his name ? These perilous 
times passed away. Christian brotherly love did not shame or 
restrain the fratricidal jealousy of Caracalla, though he was 
said to have had a Christian nurse. There seem to have been 
some strictly local persecutions under Septimius Severus. The 
brutal Commodus, we know from the authority of the Philo- 
sophumena, had a Christian mistress. Alexander Severus 
placed Christ in his gallery of Sages ; and in other respects 
this Emperor's reign is a marked era. His grant of a litigated 
piece of land for a Christian church seems to us to prove that 
this was not an innovation— not an unexampled precedent ; 
but that Christian churches, public edifices for Christian 
worship, were already common ; and, if Christian churches, no 
doubt Christian cemeteries. This brings us to the years a.d. 
222-234. The Emperor Philip, who ruled between Alexander 
Severus and Decius, is reported to have been a Christian : this 
report may have arisen from some favour shown to the Christians 
as contrasted with the internecine hostility of Decius. The 
truth is, that the Christians were really lucifugce, at the 
utmost, during the reigns of Decius and Valerian, a.d. 249-260; 
and under Diocletian, for a year or two beginning a.d. 303. 

During all this period of more than a century and a half the 
Christians were multiplying in Rome, no doubt from every 



482 



PAGAN AND CHKISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. 



class, station, and order. As the living Christians increased in 
number, so would the number of the Christian dead. We have 
already dwelt on their profound religious reverence for their 
dead ; and shown how their feelings revolted from the heathen 
usage of cremation. The absolute necessity for secure and 
capacious cemeteries, which would admit of continual enlarge- 
ment, became more and more pressing and inevitable. At the 
commencement of these operations, it may be not improbably 
supposed that, after all, the arenaria— deserted arenaria — may 
have suggested thoughts of subterranean sepulture. M. de 
Eossi speaks of one catacomb within an ancient arenarium ; he 
judges of its antiquity by its construction, and from the 
superior style of art in the ornaments, sculptures, and paint- 
ings, which degenerate with the growing degeneracy of the 
arts during the decline of the Empire. 9 The oldest sarcophagi 
too are manifestly from the hands of heathen workmen ; and 
it is curious that the inscriptions, at first hardly more than 
names, then gradually the simplest expressions of Christian 
faith and affection, are at first more generally Greek, then 
Greek mingled with Latin, till Latin assumes its predominance. 
The earlier tombs too are without those distinctive titles, which 
on the heathen monuments discriminate the noble from the 
plebeian, the master, the Libertus, the Libertinus, the slave. 
M. de Eossi, as well as his brother, enters with almost unneces- 
sary copiousness and minuteness into the legal tenure by which 
these subterranean possessions were held. We apprehend that 
they would at first be guarded by that general, almost legal, 
sanctity, by which parcels of ground, devoted to purposes of 
burial, were secured as sacred, and did not follow the rest of 
the inheritance ; and the jealousy of the heathen would hardly, 
except in the exciting times of persecution, care to invade 
those deep and hidden chambers, which provoked no notice, 
and seemed as it were to withdraw into modest obscurity. 

9 M. de Eossi repudiates the notion maintained by Raoul Pochette, and most 
earlier antiquarians, of Heathen ornaments and emblems in the Christian Cata- 
combs. We cannot enter into the controversy ; but it seems to us that M. de Rossi 
has undertaken a difficult task. 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 



483 



They would not rigidly inquire whether they were the property 
of some single wealthy Christian, under his garden or vineyard ; 
or held in common property by the Church or by separate 
churches, just as places of sepulture above ground were held 
by heathen burial clubs or cemetery companies. More especially 
when public feeling began, as we suspect it did earlier than is 
commonly supposed, to endure buildings set apart for Christian 
worship in the publicity of open day. This feeling would be 
less suspicious of these hidden and to them inaccessible vaults, 
deep in the bosom of the earth. 

We must return, however, to our Appian Way, and to the 
great discovery of M. de Eossi, the true but long lost catacomb 
of Callistus. We read in the newly recovered Philosophu- 
mena, that Zephyrinus, Bishop of Kome (a.d. 197-217), 
appointed Callistus, his future successor, after the very sin- 
gular adventures which he had undergone, to the care of a 
cemetery on the Appian Way. But there was clearly more 
than one cemetery in this quarter. One near the Church of 
S. Sebastian was long believed to be the cemetery of Callistus. 
It was the one in former days visited by strangers (above forty 
years have passed since our descent). By a most felicitous 
divination, or rather a most sagacious induction from traditions 
scattered in various documents, M. de Eossi not only detected 
the error which had so long prevailed, but clearly ascertained 
the site of the two other catacombs, some half mile or more 
beyond S. Sebastian's, one called that of Prsetextatus on the 
left, the other that of Callistus on the right of the road. With 
the energy and self-confidence of an experienced gold-digger in 
California or Australia, he obtained permission from the pro- 
prietor of the soil, and set to work in search of his not less 
highly valued antiquarian and Christian treasures. He knew 
that in this catacomb, famous of old, many bishops of Eome 
had been buried. At his bidding the ancient grave revealed 
its secrets. We can conceive no triumph greater, no satisfac- 
tion more intense, to a man of M. de Eossi's temperament, and 
one so wrapped up in his peculiar studies, than when he stood 

i i 2 



484 



PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. 



before a niche with several sarcophagi, on which stood out in 
distinct letters (some hardly mutilated) the names of Anteros, 
a pope who ruled scarcely more than a month, and of his suc- 
cessor Fabianus, the Martyr Pope in the persecution of Decius. 
The two other names were those of Popes Lucius and Euty- 
chianus. This discovery determined at once and for ever the 
site of the cemetery of Callistus, and was an important reve- 
lation of true Christian history, unobscured, unmystified by 
legend. Here was the tomb of an undoubted martyr, the first 
martyr pope since St. Peter. It is a curious point that the 
letters of these inscriptions differ. Those of Anteros are more 
elegant and finely cut ; those of Eutychianus coarser and more 
rude. M. de Eossi has no doubt that they were the primitive 
epigraphs inscribed after the death of each Pope. The mono- 
gram, M, martyr, after the name of Fabianus, de Eossi in- 
genuously observes, is of a later date, by another hand, and 
less deeply cut. Yet it is not less clearly ancient, and not of, 
what we venture to call, the martyr-making period. (See page 
256.) In the gap after Lucius was probably Episcopus, the first 
four letters of which follow the name of Eutychianus. Lucius 
was Bishop of Eome, a.d. 254 : Eutychianus, a.d. 275-283. But 
where was interred the more celebrated (at least in extant 
writings) successor of Fabianus ? Cornelius is by some said to 
have been banished to Civita Vecchia by the Emperor Gallus 
(who continued to some extent the persecution of Decius), and 
to have died there. The evidences for his martyrdom are not so 
conclusive as for that of Fabianus. Conflicting authorities con- 
nected his name with the cemetery of Callistus ; others seemed 
to throw doubt upon his burial there. By a singular accident, 
for which M. de Eossi accounts with great ingenuity (and we 
see nothing impossible in his theory, too long for us to 
explain), cropped out, if we may use the" expression, a broken 
stone, evidently part of a monumental stone, with the letters 
.... NELIUS MAETYE. With infinite pains and labour 
M. de Eossi forced his way into the subjacent cemetery, and 
in an obscure nook, as if it were intentionally secluded, he 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHKISTIAN SEPULCHEES. 



485 



found the tomb with the rest of the epigraph. This crypt 
turned out to be that called after S. Lucina, bordering upon, 
if we may say so, an offset, rather than an integral part, of 
the Callistian catacomb. Later legend had indissolubly con- 
nected the names of Pope Cornelius and Cyprian of Carthage. 
Their names are mingled up together with the famous Novatian 
controversy. Though Cornelius, if a martyr, as we can hardly 
doubt, died and was buried at Eome, and Cyprian several 
years later at Carthage, two figures, representing the two 
saints, manifestly of more recent date and of inferior art, 
appear in situ on a wall of this remarkable crypt. An in- 
scription was also found in this crypt which may show the 
singular felicity of M. de Eossi in conjectural emendations, or 
rather in filling up of imperfect inscriptions. Here too appears 
his perfect honesty, which is rarely misguided even by the 
inextinguishable prejudices which haunt Eome, — part, alas ! of 
the religio loci; and which throw reasonable suspicion on 
much of Eoman antiquarian lore. There was sore temptation 
here to find allusions to the strife of Cornelius with the 
Novatians, which might perhaps have furnished plausible 
grounds for the higher antiquity of the inscription. M. de 
Eossi resisted the spell, and read off the inscription, in our 
opinion convincingly, into commemorative verses by Pope 
Damasus, according to our severer judgment the spoiler and 
violator — according to Eoman tradition, the restorer, adorner 
—of the Catacombs, who laid them more open to the light of 
day, crowded them with churches and chapels, and allured and 
encouraged hosts of pilgrims to do homage to martyrs, multi- 
plying as fast as piety could demand or legend invent. We 
give the epigraph as read by M. de Eossi : — 

Aspice descensu extrucTO TENEBriSQ FUGATIS 
Cornell nionumenta vides tUMULumque SACRATUM. 
Hoc opus instantis? DaMASI PRAesTANTIA FECIT. 
Esset ut accessus meLIOR POpuLISQ PARATUM. 
Auxilium Sancti. 

Bentley might have owned such a conjecture. 



486 



PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHKES. [Essay VIII. 



W e must not omit another remarkable discovery of M. de 
Eossi in these catacombs ; the name of one who with many of 
his readers will rival in interest even martyr Popes. The 
same kind of authorities which guided M. de Eossi in his 
adventurous, dare we use the coarse and profane word, 
4 diggings ' for buried Popes, led him to expect to find the 
name of S. Caecilia in the same hallowed crypt. And so in 
due time S. Csecilia reveals herself in distinct letters. We 
cannot fully trace out in our pages the course of this dis- 
covery ; we are rather disposed to follow up with M. de Eossi 
a train of thought which might tend to throw some light on a 
most interesting question. Of its success we will not abso- 
lutely despair, as he does not despair. We would fain know 
the process by which some at least of the older and more 
famous names in Heathen, and Eepublican or Imperial Eome, 
passed over into the ranks of the Christians. On the whole it 
is clear to us, we think that it is beyond doubt, that the old 
noble families remained in general to the end the most obsti- 
nate Pagans. Men with the virtues as well as the birth and 
descent of old Eome (Milman's 6 Hist, of Christianity,' iii. 80, 
81) ; men, like Vettius Praetextatus, were the hope and strength 
of the Pagan party. Paganism in that class did not expire till 
all the older and nobler families were scattered over the face 
of the world, after the ruin of Eome by Alaric and by Grenseric. 
But there can be no doubt that many of them had already for- 
saken the Jove of the Capitol for the Cross of Christ. (Jerome's 
writings are conclusive for his period.) M. de Eossi observes 
that Cornelius is the only Pope who bears what he calls the 
diacritic name of one of the famous (rentes. 

Above the Catacomb of Callistus stands, or rather seems 
nodding to its fall, a huge mound, or ruined structure, mani- 
festly one of the vast and costly monuments which in Heathen 
days lined the Appian Way. What if this was a monument of 
the Caecilii, built on an estate belonging to that noble family ? 
What if S. Caecilia was descended from this illustrious race ? — 
what if the estate had passed into the hands of Christian 



Essay VIIL] PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 



487 



Caecilii, and given a right and title, or at least furnished a 
free and lawful access to the subjacent catacomb ? All this, 
we admit, is extremely visionary; but, as an acknowledged 
vision, may perhaps be indulged, till disproved — it can hardly 
be fully confirmed — by later investigations. No one is more 
sensible than M. de Eossi of the difficulties which incumber, 
and which we fear must incumber, such questions : — 

Ma nelle tenebre che coprono le genealogie durante il secolo dell' 
impero, nel mescolamento delle stirpi e de' gentilizi, in mezzo a tanti 
uomini nuovi, innalzati dai principi ai supiemi onori, e impossibile 
di veder chiaro, e dai soli nomi argomentare con sicurezza legami 
genealogici od ereditarii. 

Is there not the further and perhaps more serious difficulty, 
in the assumption of, or permission to assume, noble and genti- 
litian names, by Freedmen and Libertini ? 

Persecution after the reign of Decius was not unknown, es- 
pecially under Valerian, in which occurred the martyrdom of 
Pope Sixtus II. ; but it was intermittent, not more than local, 
till the final conflict under Diocletian. The late Cardinal 
Wiseman, it is well known, with his characteristic prudence, 
laid the scene of his romance of 6 Fabiola ' in the reign of Dio- 
cletian, when above two centuries had matured and completed 
all the arrangements for Christian burial in the catacombs ; 
when the Christians were perhaps driven to take refuge in these 
vast and unexplored depths, and really became what they have 
been fondly and foolishly declared, or suggested, or hinted to 
have been, lucifugce. The Catacombs may in those dark days 
of calamity have become places of worship, even worship of 
martyrs, whose holy example the pious fugitives might at any 
time be called upon to follow. It is certainly a whimsical sign 
of the times that a grave Cardinal, in the fulness of his car- 
dinalate, should have bowed to the all-ruling influence of 
novel-writing, and condescended to cast the doctrines of his 
Church into this attractive, it should seem almost indispensable, 
form. A Pope of old, and a very clever Pope, wrote a novel, 
but it was in his younger days of lay-hood ; and if he heartily 



488 



PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. 



repented of the Boccacio tone of his novel, he still hung with 
parental fondness over the elegance of its Latinity. Let us 
hasten to say that the Cardinal's romance (this is not mere 
respect for the departed) was not only altogether irreproachable, 
and in harmony with his stainless and serious character ; hut, if 
it had not been too didactic, its avowed but fatal aim, it might 
have enjoyed a wider and more lasting popularity. But the 
persecution of Diocletian is far less clearly illustrated than we 
might have expected from the study of the Catacombs. There 
is an obscurity which has not yet been dispersed, nor seems 
likely to be dispersed, over the acts and the fate of the Popes 
who at that period ruled in Eome. There are no years, from 
the very earliest in the Papal annals, so utterly obscure as those 
of Pope Marcellinus, a.d. 296-307. During the reign of Dio- 
cletian the great persecution commenced, Feb. 23, a.d. 303. 
It began and raged most fiercely in the East. Maximian ruled 
in the West, and in Rome. Diocletian appeared there to cele- 
brate his Vicennalia, but soon departed. For Marcellinus 
himself, he was arraigned by the earlier Christian writers as an 
apostate who offered sacrifice to Caesar. But this, as well as 
the fable of the Council of 300 Bishops of Sinuessa, is rejected 
by the later and better writers of the Church of Eome. But 
Marcellinus, as all agree, was no martyr. Where he was buried 
we know not. There is of course no vestige of him, nor, we 
believe, of his successor, Marcellus, in the Catacombs. The 
whole history in truth is a blank ; even legend is modest. 

With the cessation of the persecution the Church of Rome 
resumed, of course, with her other rights or immunities, the 
possession of her places of sepulture. But it appears that, on 
the triumph and supremacy of Christianity, the Roman Chris- 
tians began in some degree and gradually to disdain these 
secret and hidden places of rest for their dead. M. de Rossi 
states (we accept his authority from the epigraphs), that from 
a.d. 338 to 360 the proportion of burials was one-third above- 
ground, two-thirds in the Catacombs. After the reign of 
Julian — 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHKISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 489 

The use of the subterranean sepulchres visibly declines; the num- 
bers become equal. After 370 there is a sudden but not unexplained 
reaction. Magnificent churches began to rise over what were believed 
to be th3 burying-plaees of the Martyrs. But while the tomb of the 
Martyr was preserved inviolate, the altar being usually raised over 
it the first or even the second floor was frequently levelled for the 
foundations and construction of the church. Still the privilege of 
burial, as near as possible, to the sacred and now worshipped relics 
of the Martyrs, crowded the crypts below ; and subterranean inter- 
ments in subterranean chambers, under or close to the altar of the 
Martyrs, came again into honour and request.— De Rossi, p. 212. 

Then came what we presume to call the fatal pontificate of 
Damasus. This was a great epoch of change, or rather the 
height and, in one sense, the consummation of a change in 
Christianity. Among the signs of this change were the strife 
and frightful massacre at the election of Damasus— the dege- 
neracy of the clergy, so vividly if darkly described in the well- 
known passage of the heathen Ammianus Marcellinus, con- 
firmed by many passages in the writings of S. Jerome (these 
overcharged no doubt by the Saint's natural vehemence and 
passion for monasticism)— the dominance of that monasticism 
under the influence and guidance of Jerome. But nowhere 
was this change more marked than in the Catacombs. Through 
the irreverent reverence of Damasus, from hidden and secret 
chambers, where piety might steal down to show its respect or 
affection for the dead, and make its orisons, which might trem- 
ble on the verge of worship, the Catacombs became as it were 
a great religious spectacle, the scene of devout pilgrimage to 
hundreds, thousands. They must be opened as far as possible 
to the light of day; the lucernaria (the light-shafts) were 
widened, spacious vestibules or halls were hewn out for the 
kneeling votaries ; shrines, chapels, grew up ; new and easy 
steps were made in place of the narrow and winding stairs. 
We suspect that in many cases the simpler works of art were 
restored (fatal word in art), brightened, made more vivid, and, 
as it was thought, more effective. What is worse, we are now 
in the full blaze or haze of legend. The utmost scope is given 



490 



PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHEES. [Essay VIII. 



to the inventive and creative imagination ; truth fades away, 
not from intentional repudiation, but because intenser devotion, 
and what was thought a much higher purpose than knowledge, 
edification, was the aim and purpose. There was an absolute 
passion for the multiplication of martyrs ; and their lives, which 
had before been enveloped in a sober and holy twilight, came 
out into a dazzling glare of marvel — the more marvellous, the 
more admired and the more readily accepted as veracious. 
Eead the poems of Prudentius, which claim belief as real his- 
tory. The mythic period, which lasted throughout the middle 
ages, and which still hovers undisturbed over its chosen sanc- 
tuaries, has now commenced. Pope Damasus was, as he 
esteemed himself no doubt, among the great benefactors, one 
of the most pious patrons, one who did most honour to and 
sanctified most deeply the Catacombs of Eome. To us he was 
one of the worst offenders, the most real enemies to their in- 
herent interest. Inscriptions, in letters of a peculiarly bold 
and square type, everywhere betray his presence and mark his 
operations. He aspired to be, in a certain sense, the Poet of 
the Catacombs. Some, from antiquarian motives, may regret 
the loss of very many of these flat hexameters : for us, who 
desire that the privileged and excusable mendacity of poetry 
should be compensated by some of its graces and harmonies, 
enough seems to have survived. 

After the age of Damasus and his successors, the history of the 
Catacombs is brief, dark, and melancholy. Barbarians, Heathen 
barbarians, Christian barbarians, closed around Eome. Siege after 
siege ; Alaric, Genseric, Vitiges, Totila, Belisarius, girt her walls 
with hostile hordes. Her suburbs lay waste ; at least all the ex- 
tramural churches, raised over the Catacombs, were at the mercy 
of the spoilers, who, if Heathen, knew no reverent mercy, if 
Christian, at a later time, became perhaps more cruel enemies. 
Not only were the stately colossal monuments of republican or 
imperial Eome, which lined the Appian, Latin, or Flaminian 
Way, trampled as it were into ruin, made use of for military 
purposes, their materials knocked or hewn off for anybase uses ; 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 491 

but the Christian monuments, the churches, which rose above 
the Catacombs, perhaps the more accessible parts of the Cata- 
combs, were exposed to insult, ravage, destruction. It was 
even worse with Christian invaders. The relics or supposed 
relics of saints and martyrs became a sort of spolia opima, 
which the victorious foe searched out with the keenest avarice, 
and carried off with the most devout triumph. If we remember 
right, the hated and heretical Lombards were most covetous 
of that pious plunder. Eome must now perforce submit to 
the desuetude, to the tacit abrogation of her ancient and vene- 
rable laws against intramural burial. The insulted or coveted 
saints and martyrs must retreat for security within the walls. 
Accordingly, at different periods, the more precious and sacred 
remains, those of St. Peter and St. Paul, for the second and 
third time, were transplanted to more secure sanctuaries. In 
intervals of peace the suburban and extramural sites of churches, 
built over the Catacombs, maintained the names of their, alas ! 
no longer, tutelar saints. They were pointed out to and visited 
by a succession of pilgrims, M. de Rossi's friends, whose records 
he has made use of to so much advantage in his industrious 
inquiries. 

We have left but narrow, we fear much too narrow, space for 
that most interesting subject, Christian Art, as preserved and 
exhibited in the Catacombs. Unhappily these investigations 
have, especially in late years, been conducted in a spirit which 
seems to us sadly polemic and controversial. For ourselves we 
must confess, though, as we trust, firmly attached to our own 
doctrines, that we look upon the results which have yet been 
obtained with utter indifference, on any which may transpire, 
with the calmest confidence. That member of a Reformed 
Church must be deplorably ill-instructed in the distinctive 
grounds of his faith who can feel the slightest jealousy and 
alarm. If indeed we were to discover genuine documents con- 
cerning Papal infallibility, or even Papal supremacy; if we 
were to read in distinct letters of that age any of the false 
Decretals ; if the title-deeds to the temporal possessions of the 



492 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. 

Pope were to come to light ; if any of the mediaeval, or approx- 
imately mediaeval doctrines which separate Eome from us, were 
to be announced as fully developed, and resting on irrefragable 
evidence, — we might be disposed to part from our friendly com- 
pany with M. de Eossi, and to withdraw ourselves from his 
excellent and courteous guidance in these explorations. 

We are bound, however, to justify our confidence, and are 
thus forced to enter upon one or two subjects, which we would 
willingly have avoided. We have read with care the very 
learned and remarkable Essay, addressed by M. de Eossi to 
Dom Pitra, the editor of the 4 Spiciiegium Solesmense ' (now 
for his erudition and character justly promoted to the Cardi- 
nalate), on the famous symbol or emblem, the — 'Irjaovs 

Xpiarbs ©soO Tib? XcoTrjp, pp. 545-584. 

In this Essay (pp. 560, et seqq.) M. de Eossi describes some 
very curious pictures discovered in the cemetery of Callistus (of 
the age, he states, of the middle of the third century), evidently 
relating to the Holy Eucharist. We have ourselves seen, too 
hastily perhaps, these pictures. If M. de Eossi had not warned 
us (p. 360) that he was about to adduce something fatal to the 
new views on this subject, advanced in the 16th century, we 
should have read in unsuspecting innocence, and accepted the 
whole as a pleasing testimony to the profound reverence in 
which the Holy Eucharist was held by the earliest Christians. 
We have again read this part of the Essay with great care, and, 
for the life of us, can detect nothing, not the most remote 
allusion in the pictures themselves, or even in the interpreta- 
tion of M. de Eossi, to which, we will not say, any high Anglican 
might not assent, but even all those likewise who in any way 
acknowledge any presence of Christ, spiritual or symbolical, in 
the Lord's Supper. The Fish, the divine Saviour, is in more 
than one way represented in juxtaposition to, or in a sort of 
parallelism with, the sacred elements. Here he is supporting 
a basket (canistrum) containing the bread, of a peculiar shape 
and colour, with what M. de Eossi supposes, with some subtlety, 
to signify or represent the wine. There the Fish appears with 



Essay VIIL] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 493 

the bread and wine on a table. In another (a pendant, let us 
observe, to a painting clearly representing the Sacrament of 
Baptism) there is what seems a priest or bishop in the act of 
consecrating the elements, with a kneeling female, doubtless 
representing the Church. We must cite, though Latin, M. de 
Eossi's own words : — 

Jam quis dubitare possit t X 0ur, sive ille panem et vinura dorso 
sustinet, sive in mensa cum pane positus, sive sub ipsa consecrantis 
sacerdotis mami depictus est, Christum esse in eucharistia. 

Here we pause, for M. de Eossi cannot, or will not perceive, 
that as to the litigated question of the nature of Christ's 
presence, it stands precisely as it stood, in the mysterious 
vagueness in which it was left by our Saviour's words. Of the 
two main points of difference between our Churches, the itera- 
tion of the sacrifice, — which we hold to have been made once 
for all, as 6 a sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction : ' 
and the absolute transmutation of the elements, so that the 
bread and wine cease to exist, — of this materialistic change 
there is total silence, there is neither word nor hint. Indeed 
the symbolic character throughout would seem to favour those 
who interpret the whole symbolically. We must decline to 
follow M. de Eossi in some of his further speculations about 
the Supper of Emmaus, into which, we think, that the more 
cautious divines of his own Church would hardly follow him. 

The last publication on our list will perhaps still more have 
alarmed some of our readers ; it has not in the least disturbed 
our equanimity. In this we must indeed express our regret 
that M. de Eossi again appears, and more avowedly, no longer as 
the calm and sober inquirer, and the candid and conscientious 
archaeologist, but rather as a thorough going controversialist. 
We had rather meet him in amity in the former character; 
we cannot think that he is equally successful in the latter. 
He may convince those who are determined to be convinced, or 
are already convinced ; we do not think that he will be held to 
have made out his case by a single sober or dispassionate 
inquirer. Though his preface is more peaceful, M. de Eossi's 



494 



PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. Osay VIII. 



almost ostentatious object, in his few pages (illustrated by very- 
beautiful chromo-lithographic engravings, which do great credit 
to Eoman art, but which seem to us almost, like the French 
work, too beautiful to be quite true), is to show that the 
worship of the Virgin, in general supposed, even by the most 
learned in his own Church, as he himself admits, hardly to 
reach earlier than the second Council of Mcsea, is to be found 
in initiate, if not in full development, in the Catacombs of 
Eome ; M. de Eossi would persuade us nearly in Apostolic 
times. We confess that we look on this question with greater 
indifference than may be pardoned by some of our more jealous 
brethren. At what time that holiest, most winning of human 
feelings, maternal love, appealed to the heart of the believer, 
kindled the imagination of the artist, and induced him to 
bring to life, as far as he could, in his speaking colours, or even 
to express in marble, the Virgin Mother and the Divine Child ; 
at what particular period the solemn and devout affection, 
which hallowed every passage in the early Evangelic History, 
everything relating to the birth as well as the life of the 
Saviour, — how soon, and by what slower or more rapid degrees, 
respect, reverence, tender and devout interest, passed, imper- 
ceptibly no doubt, into adoration, worship, idolatry, till it 
culminated in merging as it were the Eedeemer in his more 
powerful and more merciful mother, 'jure matris impera filio;' 
till it added, literally, a fourth person to the Trinity : — 

Ante adventum Mariae regnabant in coelo tres persons, 
Alteram thronum addidit Homo Deus ; 

— all this we hold it absolutely impossible to define with precise 
accuracy.. Bolder steps may have been taken, at an earlier 
period, in certain times, certain places, by certain persons of 
more fervent religious passion. We are silent on the greater 
change in our own days ; when a revelation has been made to 
the holiness and wisdom of our contemporaries which was not 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 495 

vouchsafed to the piety of St. Bernard, or the angelic theology 
of Thomas Aquinas. 

But as to the works of art now before us, the few early 
pictorial representations of the Virgin, as dwelt upon by 
M. Eossi, they are of two kinds ; one of the Virgin Mother 
with her Child in her lap, or on her bosom ; the other as a 
female in the attitude of supplication, or as M. de Rossi would 
fondly believe, of intercession. As to the latter M. de Rossi is 
obliged, by that natural candour which he cannot shake off, to 
acknowledge that it may be no more than what it appears to 
our profane eyes, a female, possibly a martyr, or one of the 
faithful women in the attitude and act of adoration ; or still 
more probably, an impersonation, by no means uncommon in 
the earliest periods, of the Church. But though M. de Rossi 
fairly admits all this, by some strange process of reasoning, 
because in some passages of the most poetical or metaphor- 
loving of the Fathers, the Church was represented as a Virgin, 
and by others an analogy drawn between the Virgin Mother 
and the Virgin Church, therefore he would assume that these 
are premature representations of the Virgin herself. So 
bold a conclusion from such scanty premises we have rarely 
known. 

The former, the Virgin with the Child, are in truth simple 
Bible illustrations of the first chapters in the Evangelic History. 
In almost all it is the adoration of the Magi ; it is the worship 
of the Child not of the mother. In one of these, that from the 
cemetery of Domitilla, the worshipping Magi are four. The 
theory that they were three, though M. de Rossi cites many 
earlier instances, does not appear to have been rigorously 
established. The number, as we know, is not declared in the 
Gospels. Is it not probable that the three were settled in 
conformity with the three oblations ? One, as we often see, 
bears the gold, another the incense, the third the myrrh, as the 
tribute of different Eastern nations. After all, may not the 
four be here, as M. de Rossi suggests, to balance and give 
symmetry to the design. On some sarcophagi, it may be 



496 



PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. 



added, appears the Child laid in the manger, in his swadddling 
clothes, with the mother near him, and the ox and the ass, 
once thought only to belong to later compositions, in mute 
adoration. No instance of this has been found in the catacomb 
paintings. 

The adoration of the Magi appears again in a lunette of an 
arcosolio in the cemetery of S. Peter and S. Marcellinus. 
Here it is remarkable that the head of the Virgin is without a 
veil. This is supposed to indicate her virginity, as unmarried 
maidens did not wear the veil. In this there are only two 
Magi, looking much less kingly and less Oriental than in later 
art. 

The third picture is the one which has been so often copied, 
from a lunette in an arcosolio in the cemetery of S. Agnese. 
This is familiar to all inquirers into ancient Christian art. It 
appears in Bishop Munter's 4 Sinnbilder der alten Christen ; ' 
who does not scruple to recognize in it a representation of the 
Virgin. It represents a female with uplifted hands, as in 
prayer, with a child in her lap. But the style of art, verging 
towards the Byzantine, and other indications noted by M. de 
Eossi, especially the double monogram, which rarely appears 
before the unfolding of the Labarum by Constantine, clearly 
prove that this is the latest of the four paintings of the Virgin, 
and dates assuredly after the peace of the Church under 
Constantine. 

There remains the first, on which M. de Eossi lavishes all 
his ingenuity, and indeed rests the whole strength of his case. 
It was found on the vaulting, over a 'loculo' in the cemetery 
of Priscilla. The chromo-lithograph is of the size of the 
original. Another of these chromo-lithograph s exhibits the 
whole vaulting with the other paintings which cover it, and 
deserves our serious attention. Half of the centre of this (of 
one-half unfortunately the plaster has entirely fallen away and 
left no trace of the design) is occupied by the Good Shepherd 
carrying the lost sheep to the fold ; the other two animals on 
each side of him are figured in relief of the finest white stucco, 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 



497 



as is the trunk of the tree, of which the branches, foliage, 
fruit, and flowers are only painted. It seems to us rather a 
bold conjecture to suppose that the obliterated half of the 
picture represented the female, whatever she be or signifies, in 
the attitude of prayer, because this figure is more than once the 
6 pendant ' to the Grood Shepherd. And M. de Eossi here cites 
a parallel case, which seems to us altogether at issue with his 
interpretation of the praying female. On a sarcophagus in 
the Lateran, which has the G-ood Shepherd balanced by the 
praying female, appears over the female the name IULIANE. 
Now as this was the name of the person deposited in the 
sarcophagus (as appears by an epigraph from her widowed 
husband) it is clear that in this instance it represents the 
departed wife, whose piety is thus imaged forth. To return : 
in another part, on the right-hand side, of the 4 loculoj there 
is a group to which a more commanding personage, almost 
obliterated, appears to point, of singular interest. The group 
consists of three figures ; one a female in the attitude of prayer, 
with a long tunic and pallium ; the second, a man in a short 
tunic and pallium, also with his arms uplifted as in adoration ; 
the third a youth about ten years old, — this figure is less 
perfect. 1 We at once made a bold conjecture, anticipating, 
we rejoice to say, the interpretation of M. de Eossi, as to the 
Scriptural scene here represented, the return from the visit to 
the Temple, where our Lord, at twelve years old, disputed with 
the Doctors. 4 Behold thy father and I have sought thee 
sorrowing' 4 Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's 
business f ' Of the same size with this (the chromo-lithograph 
is that of the picture) is the important painting on which M, 
de Eossi dwells with such satisfaction. The Virgin Mother is 
seated with her Divine Son in her lap ; above her, faint but 
still distinctly to be traced, is the star always seen in the 
representations of the Adoration of the Magi. In the front, to 
the left, is the figure of a man, youthful, with a few thin hairs 

1 We accept M. de Rossi's description of the three figures ; which seems to us 
from the print somewhat doubtful. 

lv K 



498 



PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. 



on his cheeks, standing up clothed only, in a pallium, with his 
hands pointing at the star above the Virgin and Child ; he 
holds the volume of a book in his hand. Who can this repre- 
sent ? St. Joseph ? That Saint, though usually represented 
in later times as advanced in years, sometimes, as we are in- 
formed, appears as a beardless youth. But why the book ? 
M. de Eossi suggests (and we accept his interpretation with 
hardly a doubt) that it represents one of the prophets of the 
Old Testament pointing at the star, and so signifying the 
fulfilment of prophecy. We had thought of Balaam ; M. de 
Eossi inclines to Isaiah, and cites an authority for the prophet's 
youth in a glass ornament (vetro), described in P. Grarrucci's 
curious work. There are not wanting pictures and sculptures 
which bear close analogy to this, as a painting, described by 
Bosio, where the Virgin is seated before two towers, with a 
figure behind, which is supposed to designate the towers of 
Bethlehem where the Child was to be born. Be this as it ma}?-, 
we have before us nothing more than what perhaps may not be 
strictly called a scene from the Evangelic History, but, as it 
were, a symbolic picture, founded on a real scene. It very 
nearly resembles those typical pictures so common in early 
Christian art ; Jonah prefiguring the Eesurrection, Moses 
striking the rock, in all which there is ever something more 
than a mere representation of the scenes in the Old Testament, 
ever a constant reference to their bearing on the (xospel. In 
short, we see no reason why the most scrupulous Acatholic, as 
by a courteous euphemism we are called in the preface to this 
work, may not gaze on this picture with as profound interest 
as the most devout worshipper of the Virgin. Of that worship, 
there is in the design not a shadow of a shade ; the adoration 
is all centered on the child Jesus. Our own illustrated Bibles 
(Mr. Longman's or Mr. Murray's) may, without fear, transfer it 
to their pages. 

The age of this picture M. de Eossi labours to raise, if not 
to that of the Apostles, to a period closely bordering upon it. 
It cannot at any rate be later than the Antonines. Into one of 



Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 499 



our author's arguments we fully enter. Its rare beauty shows 
a time when Eoman art was yet in its prime, before it had begun 
to degenerate into that rude and coarse conception and execution 
which gradually, during the third and fourth centuries, darkened 
towards the Byzantine. We are the last to doubt that the ac- 
complished student of early Christian art, with the countless 
specimens which are now multiplying around him, collected, 
and examined and compared with such eager and emulous zeal, 
may acquire that fine perception which can assign probable 
dates for their execution. Yet there must still be limits to this 
critical divination ; some uncertainty will cleave to the soundest 
judgement. The individual artist may be later than his age, as 
he may be before his age. The sense of beauty and the skill, 
as they rose to precocious life, so may still linger in some chosen 
votaries. 

Where the periods are defined, and marked by great names, 
each with his distinctive character ; where the advance or 
degradation may be traced through numerous and undoubted 
examples, as in the history of Greek sculpture or Italian 
painting, we receive the decisions of the wise without mistrust. 
But it seems far more questionable, whether any taste however 
sensitive, any knowledge however extensive, can peremptorily 
discriminate between the Flavian age and the age of the 
Antonines, or even that of the immediate successors of the 
Antonines, especially in Christian art, of which, after all, the 
examples are comparatively few, and far from perfect ; and 
where the employment of Pagan artists may in some cases have 
continued longer, in others been sooner proscribed and fallen 
into desuetude. 

But while we treat M. de Eossi's artistic argument with 
much respect, he must permit us to say that his historical 
argument for the antiquity of these paintings, however in- 
genious, seems to us utterly worthless. It rests on very 
doubtful legend, on the forced association of names, arbitrarily 
brought together. Our doubts would require more room than 
his statement, for every step in his reasoning seems to us liable 



500 



PAGAN AND CHKISTI AN SEPULCHRES. 



[Essay VIII. 



to doubt ; there is hardly an assumption which our critical 
spirit would grant; and the whole is as inconclusive as the 
separate steps. 

We know not that we can better part with M. de Eossi (we 
would part with him on the friendliest terms) than with the 
old Spanish salutation, 'May you live a thousand years.' 
Certainly, considering the extent and variety of his under- 
takings, the magnificent scale on which those undertakings are 
conducted, the narrow threescore years and ten to which it 
has pleased Divine Providence to contract the life of man, that 
span would seem to offer but insufficient space for the full 
accomplishment of his ambitious schemes. 



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